


The Physical Kids : World Tour!

by salem_student



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boy Band, Blow Jobs, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27876794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salem_student/pseuds/salem_student
Summary: Eliot would be better than that, Eliot would make sure that everybody knew who he loved. Not that Eliot has anything even close to love for Q. It’s affection for a colleague, an interest in his bandmate’s love life running smoothly, nothing at all to do with having a crush on a straight friend. No Quentin is not Eliot’s type, no interest and no use thinking about it, because as previously stated Quentin Coldwater is 100% straight.
Relationships: Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 38
Kudos: 35





	1. Cowboys

They sent her in like a weapon. Primed to destroy and she knew it. She’d marched into the cottage as if her life depended on it, her pretty face set in a glare. Eliot wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d started yelling and stamping her foot. It made quite the contrast to the lazy, hazy vibe of the studio. Well not even studio, fucking practise room -- great for when you have shit all to play no ideas -- zero. 

It reminded Eliot of sheltering from the rain, and other shitty environments, in the music rooms at school. Quite literally. He’d smoked his first joint in the shed behind the music block, then sat under the piano eating popcorn and laughing. Why under? Fuck if he knew? Something about the ridiculousness of cramming his body into that tiny space, the freedom it gave him from needing to play the damn thing. Maybe it was homoerotic -- most things in his life did turn out to be Freudian. Something about the fact that if he wanted to, he could reach out and palm Taylor’s dick through his jeans. Make him come down his throat while, if anyone was to glance through the glass window in the door, all they’d see was a boy playing the piano. Hmmm, or more likely it was the way he could rest his head against the wood, feel the clunky notes of Taylor attempting to play. He could mutter minor corrections.  _ ‘Don’t be so stiff, feel the music in your fingers’ _ and otherwise drift off into his head. No-one to see him, no need to pretend. 

This practise room is different. It’s much more extensive for a start -- with a frankly ridiculous baby grand piano --perfect for lounging on, cold to sit under. There are mirrors along one wall because this isn’t a room for writing music or practising music -- it’s a room for practising the performance. For learning how to look like they really love playing this shit. Josh passes him the joint, Eliot makes eye contact with the woman, smirks and takes a long drag. Not quite as good as his school practise room, still good. 

“What the actual fuck?” The woman said, storming over and snatching the joint and ashtray from Eliot’s hands. “Have you done any work today?” She glared at each band member individually. No response, “Well fuckers, it’s time to get your noses to the mother fucking grindstone. Clearly, your last manager was a piece of asscrack sucking shit, but I actually expect you to make some goddamn fucking music.”

Eliot stood up; he towered over her. He smirked, plucked the ashtray from her hands, set it down on the side, and silently lamented that the cherry had gone out. He looked into the woman’s face appraisingly. God she had massive eyes. She looked young, definitely no older than him. All that rage and intensity, Eliot could see right through it. This was a woman who saw the world as it was and instead of being terrified, or running away, she turned around and faced it. Said  _ fine, you can kill me, but I’m gonna make your life fucking hell while you do it _ . Eliot liked her. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, picked up the joint from the ashtray. Put it in his mouth and lit it. Then he held it out to her with a quirk of his eyebrows. “ I’m going to call you Bambi. “

_________________________________________________________________

  
  


Bambi, who Eliot now knew to be called Margo, hadn’t been kidding when she said she was putting them to work. Eliot swore he hadn’t slept in three days -- and not the fun hadn’t slept in three days either. The wake up at 5 in the fucking morning for choreography sessions with a woman who he was sure Margo had yanked out of hell itself. To make matters worse, she also insisted that they write music -- the audacity of their manager to demand they work, right? So Eliot had been up until 1 am every night trying to fucking string some words together that would  _ ‘appeal to their audience’ _ and not be  _ ‘fucking maudlin’ _ . Why Margo had decided that the dedicated team of songwriters who had churned out a steady stream of sentimental tripe thus far weren’t good enough Eliot didn’t know. To be honest he was a little -- a lot -- afraid to ask. The whole band was exhausted. But it was okay, he gave Margo a week before the general creative lethargy wore her down.

Right now they were up at some ungodly hour, huddled together, smoking and bitching about the cold, while, like, way too many people ran around with cameras and lights and clipboards. In short, they were in hell. Or a video shoot, same difference. The telltale clip of Margo’s heels on the cement drew a low groan out of Quentin -- who had pretty much fallen asleep, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, tucked in with his knees to his chest. Eliot looked at him fondly; he ruffled Q’s hair. Looking at him now. Sleepy and scowling you’d never be able to tell he was the frontman of their group. It was amazing, really, how the label had managed to take this adorable super-nerd and turn him into a man who every teenage girl in America had doodled the ridiculous surname of in their school binders. Eliot let himself daydream for a moment -- Eliot Coldwater, Quentin Waugh. Ugh. Ridiculous. Fucking straight people and their weird obsession with identity hopping. You don’t need to tie yourself to someone else to do that, Eliot had managed to do it all on his own.

“Come on Q, up and at ‘em,” Josh says, he’s clearly exhausted as well, but is a master of chemical balances -- he’d worked out exactly what strain of weed mixed with which upper would get him dissociating through the rest of the day just enough not to get caught. Eliot had never been able to swing that, either he was sober, or he was seeing fairies -- no in-between. Why only escape a little bit? Aside from weed and alcohol obviously -- he prided himself on his ability to maintain a constant level of slightly drunk. Everyone knew, of course, it was pretty fucking obvious, but he hoped that to a casual observer, he just looked languid, sexy Romantic drunk, not gross mid-western drunk. 

“Eliot, they want you back on set,” Margo calls out impatiently, she taps her foot as she waits for him to come over. With a thump and a groan Quentin abandons all attempts to become upright and crashes back down onto the bench. He narrowly avoids smashing into Penny.

“Motherfucker,” Penny says under his breath as he shuffles further towards the end of the bench. Oblivious and unhelpful Josh slots himself onto the bench. With Q no longer making any attempt to appear functional the number of people who could comfortably fit on the bench had been reduced to two -- one sprawling Coldwater, one scowling Penny. Josh shows zero respect for this and quite happily sprawls next to Q… so he’s basically on Penny. “Christ, boundaries!” Penny yells. Eliot laughs at the sound of their bickering coming from behind him. Never fuck with Penny on set. Sleeping lions are safer.

“Come on Penny, no boundaries on tour!” From Josh.

“We’re not on fucking tour. There are other benches.” 

“ You wouldn’t move him, would you?” 

“  _ Ugh _ . I am not moving so Coldwater can nap wherever the fuck he wants.”

“ never asked you to move,” Mumbled from Quentin,”jus’ little sleep” 

“Fucking animals, fucking sleeping outside.” Penny stands up and walks pointedly over to a bench a yard away. Josh flips him the bird laughing. A short bark of laughter. Penny was soft really, but for some reason set always cut his fuse down to about a millimetre. 

They walk onto the soundstage. Todd waves at him from where he is animatedly talking to an extra. “ Hey, El! The set is so cool. Honestly, you’re gonna love it.” Internally Eliot groans, he had nothing against Todd. He was totally passable, fine, occasionally fun to hang out with, definitely an asset to the band, just so goddamn eager. He was like a puppy, but with all of the desperate, bouncy energy and none of the adorable sleepiness. Margo picks up on Eliot’s reaction to Todd and smirks at him. 

“Sorry Todd, no time to chat.” She speeds up, and they head onto the set, which is frankly ridiculous. Sure Eliot doesn’t exactly listen in meetings. He’s content -- well not content, he tolerates being put where the label wants him and doing what they want. But this? This is insane. He looks at Margo, eyes wide, in an attempt to communicate just how stupid this whole set up is. She just smiles and keeps leading him into the set, “Calm down city boy, a little bit of hay won’t kill you.” 

Eliot barely contains his laughter. Yeah, hay won’t kill him, he can do hay. Eliot hates it, but he knows his way around a farm -- or more aptly knows his way around having terrible sex in a hay-barn so he doesn’t risk his dad finding out. Knows his way around crying in the cowshed, because for some fucking reason they keep a first-aid kit in there, and he couldn’t use the one in the kitchen. His dad would pitch a fit if he saw his faggot of a son being a fanny by -- shock horror -- applying a band-aid to his father inflicted wounds. Point being Eliot gets farms, he doesn’t fucking like them, but he understands them.

The set is nothing like a farm. This is a city toddler's fever dream of what a farm could be. There’s a red barn cutout and artfully stacked hay bales everywhere. Shit, is that? “I don’t play the banjo.” He glares at Margo; he should start listening in meetings.

Margo rolls her eyes. “ Calm down, that’s just set-dec. You know the story, right?” 

“Of course, I --” Eliot starts, not wanting to admit how lost he was. He looks around, notices a woman wearing a cowboy outfit. Of course. “ I’m a … cowboy? Flirting with Jesse over there? I sing at her, do a little dance, beautiful idyllic farm scene.” Margo just looks at him, hard enough that Eliot feels himself wither, he scratches at his elbow self consciously. “Or, um… not that?”

Margo rolls her eyes, “yeah no shit. Look at your fucking outfit. Do you look like a cunt licking cowboy?” 

Eliot looks down at his outfit; he’s wearing skinny jeans and a button-up shirt, with a sparkly bomber jacket that he was definitely going to steal, maybe embroider something ironic on the back, wear it with a vest and tie. God if people listened to his style choices, they could look so much better. “No?” 

“No. You’re the --” Margo glances at her clipboard, “ metrosexual city boy come to whisk her,” She thumbs at the cowgirl, “ away to a life of romance in New York.” 

“Metrosexual?” Eliot raises an eyebrow. This was stupid, but hey at least he’d managed to create such a strong persona that it was unimaginable to cast him as not from the city. 

Margo shrugs, “ I didn’t write the copy.” Then she pushes him towards his mark. “ You know what you’re doing?”

“Bambi, what about our interactions so far indicate I know what I’m doing?” 

“Ugh. This is your first solo. So you’re meeting the girl, being in love blah blah blah. This is the bit that’s going to make all of the fans imagine that wow they could totally date you.”

“Gross”

“Yeah, but shitty self insert fanfic writers buy records.”

Eliot rolls his eyes. “ Fine, let’s go.” 

He turns on the charm and smiles at his scene partner, “ Hey, you ready to fall in love?” He says, trying to hold back his sarcasm -- she’s just doing her job, not her fault that this is a stupid concept.

She beams at him, “ Hi, I’m Fen!” Ugh, another Toddtype. Does the label have a lock on over-enthusiastic performers? Where are the rest of his depressed artists? Oh yeah, outside sleeping on each other and smoking. 

“Hi Fen,” He says carefully. “Nice to meet you.” Fuck can they get this over with? Thankfully he’s saved from having to make more small talk by an MUA running over and fixing his make up. Then the director is yelling action, and they start. 

It’s a pretty simple scene, mostly just sitting on a hay bale mouthing the words to his solo at Fen, while she preens. It’s melodramatic, but he can get why it could be fun -- if cliches are fun for you. The storyline is that he’s at this farm place for an unknown reason, Fen catches his eye. She has a boyfriend, but their love is so intense that they can’t stay away from each other. It’s an awful lot of him leaning against shit and flirting while she pretends to be ignoring him. It’s not great for the whole; no means no, thing. If you’re flirting with someone and they’re not interested, you don’t keep flirting till they give in, but hey this is what the label thinks is romantic. Fucking straight people. 

They finish with the final shot of this segment, him dipping Fen back into a dramatic, passionate kiss. ‘Cut’. When he pulls away Fen is giggling and blushing. “ That was so fun!” Eliot smoothes his shirt down, puts on his fake smile. 

“Yeah, super fun. Can’t wait to work with you again.” He looks around for Margo, is he done now? Can he go and smoke until the group choreography? Please?

Fen laughs again, slaps his arm lightly. Ugh is she flirting? Like properly flirting? Eliot takes a step away, it doesn’t deter her, but maybe she’s just a super tactile person -- she is an actor after all. “ Well that’s lucky! We’ve got a whole other scene to do.” 

“Huh?”

“Yeah, this is just the first verse; my ‘boyfriend’ needs to catch us. You need to be upset for the dramatic chorus.” 

Oh shit yeah, Eliot needs to start paying attention. He wrote this song, or sort of wrote it. He should know at least the vibe of the song. It’s about heartbreak and unrequited love and how shitty you feel when someone cheats with you -- when you tempt someone into cheating. The act of loving someone who loves someone else and hurting them by loving them. Fuck when he wrote it, it meant something, but in the turning it into a song that The Physical Kids could perform all of the heart was taken out of it. Now it’s a saccharine pop love song. The romance between Eliot and Fen is meant to be beautiful; you ‘belong with me’ style. No guilt on Eliot’s part included. Fen’s boyfriend will probably be some stupid ugly angry man -- a caricature of the unworthy boyfriend. 

He catches Margo’s eye, makes a little smoking gesture. She shakes her head minutely then goes back to the conversation she’s having with the director. With a sigh Eliot sits down on the bale of hay -- clearly, he’s being forced to stay in this room, making inane small talk until he dies or the video is finished, whichever comes first, or sells more records. “Oh right yeah of course.” He says, mostly so that Fen doesn’t think he’s an arsehole who’s ignoring her. He is ignoring her. She’s been going off on one about what the song might mean, and how it’s so romantic and how excited she is to be in the video. If he had to guess he’d think that she probably grew up in the countryside and went to college to meet a guy to get married to -- the American dream. Elevate your station by falling in love with a dickhead who’ll swoop you away to the city. God forbid you elevate yourself. Although Fen does seem much happier than he is, so maybe her whole thing is working. 

Intrigued mostly by whether his fictional backstory for her is correct, he interrupts her. “ Do you have much farm experience?” 

Fen laughs again, “No, sort of. I’m from the middle of nowhere. My dad was a blacksmith. Which is not a job that people have anymore, so he basically just makes custom metal work for people. I loved it there, but I -- it’s such a small village, literally almost everybody there is my cousin. So in terms of love, it’s not great, plus I love acting. So here I am. I’ll move back at some point, but the acting is working right now, and it’s not like I’ve met anyone, so…” Eliot smiles. Basically entirely correct. 

He’s saved from having to continue the conversation by a shout of “scene two shot one positions please!” From the assistant director. A person comes and messes with his hair, applies a slick of smudged red lipstick to his lips. Oh, this is the caught out post-sex scene, of course. Ugh. He looks around for Margo; she’s disappeared somewhere. Then she emerges from the direction of the costume department, with the boyfriend. 

It’s Q. They’ve cast Quentin Coldwater as the scary cowboy boyfriend. This is ridiculous. He looks like the milky bar kid, a very uncomfortable, anxious milky bar kid. He keeps tugging at the sleeves -- god they’re tasselled. At Eliot’s laugh, Quentin’s head jerks up. He scowls at Eliot and flips him off, but he seems to relax a little. Eliot undoes the top button on his shirt and raises his eyebrows at Quentin as he does it; yes this video is disgusting and so heterosexual, but he can pretend that the end goal of this is to solve-it-with-polyamoury. Quentin laughs, and Eliot is struck by how much he loves the sound of his bandmate’s laugh, he always ducks his head like he’s ashamed to feel happiness, blushes, and his face just crinkles into all of these dimples and smile lines. He has a face built to laugh -- unlike Eliot’s own which is decidedly better suited to the morose.

“Places!” The assistant director yells again. Eliot puts his hands up in apology and walks over to his mark. He’s sitting on the hay bale with Fen -- she’s had the ‘just had sex’ treatment too. 

“Striking”

“Roll sound!” 

“ Sound Rolling!”

“Camera set?”

“ Camera rolling.” 

“Final Checks!” An MUA runs over and does something to his collar, making it more artfully dishevelled than runs away again.

“All set!” 

“Call it!”

The 2nd AC runs in front of the camera, holding an electric clapperboard. “2.1.1,” She says quickly, slams the clapper down and then dives back behind the camera.

“ Okay, Action on Eliot and Fen!” 

Fen lunges for his face. Fuck, okay he definitely needs to read the script beforehand. She’s an okay kisser, very eager, very performative passion. Lots of running her hands up and down his body and pulling away to gasp. Eliot’s sure he’s just staring at her woodenly, he has no fucking clue what to do. The director picks up on it and sighs. “ Cut!” 

“Sound Cut!”

“Camera Cut!” 

“ Reset!” The grip team rolls the camera back on its track to the start position. 

“Eliot can you try to act like you’re into this please? Look you’re making out with a super hot girl. Just enjoy it, mate.” The director says, clearly pissed off at how unprepared Eliot is. 

“Sure sorry, just got in my head a bit. I’ll do better next time.”

“Please. Just fucking snog her.” Eliot hears a snigger from behind him; he deliberately does not look around to where Quentin is waiting to enter. 

“Aye aye captain, prepared to snog.” 

“okay. Are we set?”

“Camera set!”

“Sound set!” 

“Last looks?”

Someone runs over and resets Fen’s hair, reapplies some lipstick to both of their mouths. “ Set!” 

“Call it!” 

“2.1.2”

“Action!”

Eliot kisses Fen ,this time. Get it over and done with. One hand on her waist, one in her hair. If it looks real, they won’t have to do it again. It’s okay; it’s fun. Of course, it’s fun; kissing is always fun even if the circumstances aren’t exactly how he’d want them. Then she’s being pulled off him, gasping and crying dramatically. Then Quentin’s in front of him. Eliot quirks his eyebrows and leans back onto the bale a little.

“Fuck. Cut!” 

Eliot frowns at the director, “ What?” 

“ You’re about to punch him not fuck him! Reset” 

“Oops,” Eliot murmurs to Quentin as they reset. They do the scene again; this time, it goes pretty smoothly. Q pulls Fen away, Eliot stands up. Fen throws herself around. Quentin pushes at Eliot’s chest with two hands. Surprisingly strong, as always. Eliot forces himself to look at least a little angry and throws a punch. To his credit, Quentin is pretty good at acting, so he does look like he’s been punched. 

They cut, move on to the close-ups. Someone comes along and gives them both bloody lips and cuts on their cheekbones. Then they fake fight for like an hour. It’s the most fun Eliot’s had all day. Of course, it has to end; one of them has to win. In this case, it’s Eliot, because he’s the city boy who gets the girl, and Quentin is just the poor, horrible, adorable boyfriend who couldn’t keep up. Eliot throws the last punch, Quentin falls to the ground. Eliot walks to Fen, the camera tracking backwards on his face as he mouths the words to his second solo. He grabs her by the wrist, pulls her close, and kisses her again. It’s very Oklahoma. 

“And cut! That was the one guys, happy to wrap.”

Eliot lets go of Fen. Thank fuck that’s over. “ Good job” He murmurs to her, not wanting to be rude. Then he walks back to Q and offers him a hand. 

Quentin takes it and lets Eliot yank him up. He smiles and points at Eliot’s face “you’ve, you’ve got something on -- er, like --"

“Oh on my face?" Eliot wipes away a tiny bit of the blood, “did I get it?”

“No, um… it’s more like “ Q gestures to his entire face. 

Eliot wipes his eyebrow, “now?” 

“Errr, sure.” They laugh. “That was fun,” Quentin says with a stretch. 

“Yeah, I’m going to have to fight you way more often.” ,

Quentin gives him a playful punch on the arm, “hey you won’t win every time.” 

They playfully spar for a moment, laughing. Margo interrupts them. “Fights over boys, go get cleaned up. We’ve got the major choreography after lunch.” Eliot swings his arm around Quentin’s shoulders, and they walk off to the costume and makeup department. 

The main dance scene was as exhausting and complicated as expected. At least those hours of being yelled at by Kady paid off. Although Eliot resented what they’d done to his song he had to admit that they looked good. They had the whole heart throb, boy band thing down, lots of pointing and gyrating. The only slight hiccup was the director yelling at Q, which -- the boy is not the best dancer of the group, and he’s had a long day. So like -- no need to scream at him for getting distracted -- although Eliot isn’t quite sure what exactly he was being told to stop staring at. 

When they’re done, and the film team is packing up, Todd calls out, “ Hey guys, I think there’s a decent bar round here. Get a drink before we go home?” He turns to Margo with this awful puppy dog expression, “ Come with us. We can skip the five am choreography tomorrow.” 

There’s a long moment where she just stares at him, then slowly a smile creeps across her face. “ We can have the day off tomorrow. You guys did well, let’s have fun.”Ah right, that’s why they keep Todd around. He’s an annoying over-eager theatre kid, but he’s their annoying over-eager theatre kid. 

  
  



	2. Alice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang goes to the pub.

To give Todd credit the bar isn’t bad, it’s nothing super special, but it’s nice. It’s pretty small with a wooden interior and a fire burning in the corner. It serves real ale, which Eliot thinks is gross, but seems to please Penny and Josh. Classic rock is playing. It feels cosy. 

That illusion is quickly shut down when as soon as they’re seated at their table Margo leans in and asks, “ So why are you all so pissy?” 

Quentin chokes on his drink so severely that Penny has to thump him on the back, if the reproachful look Q gives him is anything to go by, it was maybe a little too hard. “Sorry for saving your life.” Josh shakes his head and starts laughing, while Eliot, cool and slightly detached as always, chuckles. He delights in the kicked puppy look Quentin shoots his way.

“What makes you say we’re pissy?” Eliot asks, taking a long drink of his wine, a Chilean pinot noir. 

“ So many people dream about living your lives, and you all just seem like you can’t be fucked with it. What’s the problem? What’s got your dicks?” 

“Bambi, come on. You know we can’t just--”

“Can’t just what?” 

“ He’s saying that we’re not gonna talk shit about the label with their minion,” Penny says. 

“ Okay, I am no-ones fucking minion. Now ovary up and tell me why the fuck you’re all so miserable.” 

“ Maybe all the aggression might not be helping the situation?” Todd says.

“Ugh, fuck off Todd.” Margo snaps back. “I’m trying to help you. I want you to make good music. If you hate this, then your music is going to be soulless and shitty.” ,

A bitter laugh goes through the band, then Quentin pipes up, “ The label made it pretty clear that soulless is the goal here,”.

“Yeah last time I pitched anything that wasn’t ‘hey girl, your eyes are magical and you just don’t know it’ they kicked me to the kerb,” Josh says.

“God forbid we make anything that means anything.” Says Eliot. 

“ So how are you writing music?” Asks Margo with a little frown. 

“ Ha. We’re not.” Says Penny, finishing his pint -- which -- Eliot’s impressed. That’s a record speed; Penny really hates music videos. He stands up and walks to the bar. 

Josh holds his hands up and shrugs, “ We just play what they tell us to play. Smoke?” He stands up too, looks around the group expectantly. 

Quentin nods, “Every so often they want something original that they can push as personal, but they’re pretty formulaic. It’s not hard.” He says to Margo as he puts on his coat. “I’ll have a cigarette, Alice is on her way.” Eliot bites his tongue from saying that it’s not hard to write some bullshit when you really don’t write music anyway. It’s totally different to put your heart into something and to be kicked to the kerb. 

Margo raises her eyebrows at Josh, “You’re incorrigible, I’m coming.” She stands up, shoots back the rest of her wine. Holy fuck Eliot is falling behind tonight -- although Alice will probably hold Q back from getting too drunk, so he won’t be the soberest. Although the idea of being even a little bit sober around Alice and Quentin made him want to drown himself in wine. 

“Fuck it; I’m in.” Eliot downs his drink and stands up too. He looks at Todd who’s texting someone. “ Todd?” 

He looks up, his face a bright red, “ Um- I’m actually - I’m - I’m gonna go-”

“It was your idea to come,”

“Yeah, but, that extra from earlier? She wants to get drinks and -- “

“You want to get laid,” Penny says as he returns to the group. 

Josh wolf whistles “ Niiiice” 

Eliot smirks, “Remember to use a condom.” 

Todd just blushes more, which prompts Eliot to dig in deeper, “ Honey it’s okay. I can show you how.” He plucks the condom from his wallet and passes it over the table to Todd, leaning across as he does. “Do you want me to show you how to put it on with your mouth?” Todd is pretty straight, like maybe a little bit gay in an ‘I want to be you’ way, so flirting with him is fun. No stakes, all embarrassed boy. 

But weirdly Quentin has gone bright red too. “I’m gonna, um… toilet,” He says and runs off. God, is Eliot the only one of them who can talk about sex without acting like a teenager? Hmm, maybe Penny too. 

“Oh, baby! Daddy can teach you too” Eliot calls after him, which earns him a look from Penny and a smirk from Margo. Meanwhile, Josh is bullying Todd into sharing photos of the extra and generally being a gross man. 

_________________________________________________________________

At this point in the night, Eliot is drunk enough that everybody has a little halo, everything is slightly more beautiful. He’s not sure if he’s getting touchy( because well -- he’s always touchy and his friends are so fucking attractive) or if he genuinely needs help standing up. Best to drink more to clarify that. He kisses Margo, who tonight is rapidly becoming maybe his absolute favourite person, on the top of her head and sways his way to the bar. When he gets there, he sees it’s occupied. Ugh. Alice. 

She’s fine. She’s honestly fine. A perfectly acceptable human, very intense, but so are lots of people Eliot likes, Margo’s intense, hell Eliot himself can be a bit much. Read ‘A drama queen who never has and will learn that the world doesn’t revolve around him’ as an ex said just before he broke up with him. But at least he’s intense in a fun way? Alice is so highly strung that her face is stuck in this constant frown -- like everything in the world is wrong and if it just did what she said everything would be perfect. He’s not entirely sure she doesn’t wear a back brace with how straight she sits. Such a contrast to Quentin, cute, nerdy Q -- who, yes, is anxious and gets flustered quickly and it is possible that maybe he appreciates having someone who acts as if she understands how the world works. Hmmm. Eliot hates it when he doesn’t like a relationship, but can see in theory why it would work. Chemistry matters. There’s no way they’re having good sex, unless-- Eliot looks closely at Alice -- no, that girl is way too tightly strung to have ever dabbled in kink. Quentin blushes and changes the subject every time anyone mentions dicks or sex, so he’s not suggesting anything. They’re having terrible vanilla sex, but both of them need a good fucking and to chill the hell out. 

Eliot forces himself not to think about what Quentin might look like when he’s having such good sex that he can’t stress out, for probably the first time in his life. He leans against the bar, next to Alice. “So how does saxophone college treat you?” 

Alice turns to him, her mouth set in a tight line. From the way Quentin runs a hand down his face it’s clear that Eliot is a welcome distraction from  that conversation. Eliot smirks, of course, he is. “Saxophone college?” Alice asks. 

“Ugh,” Eliot waves his arms around, “The snooty place--”

“Excuse me?” 

“Eliot, come on, don’t --” Quentin says, but he’s smiling, and Eliot will do anything for Quentin’s smile.

“Brakebutts?” Eliot says, eyes fixed on Q, who is poorly hiding his enjoyment of Eliot’s teasing. As for Alice, she has not got that this is fun ribbing, not an attack.

“ You know it’s called Brakebills and it’s not snooty, it’s exclusive.” 

“Isn’t that another word for snooty?” Eliot asks, raising an eyebrow; he waves down the bartender. 

“Double whisky again?” He asks before Eliot has a chance to say anything. Eliot looks him up and down. He’s hot, in a country club, if your parents weren’t homophobic he’d fit in well at family Christmas type of way. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Eliot flicks his eyes back to Q and Alice, then raises his eyebrows at the bartender, he smiles. 

“ You remembered my order?” Eliot flirts, the conversation with Quentin and Alice forgotten.

Alice scoffs, “Come on, Q. Let’s go sit down.” She picks up her drink and walks off to a table. 

Quentin picks up his drink, looks at Eliot for just a moment too long. Eliot pretends not to notice, leans further across the bar to speak to the bartender, Mike -- from Texas -- definitely flirting. “Okay, um… see you later El.” Quentin mumbles. 

Without turning around, Eliot calls out, “sure, later.” He doesn’t think about the way his heart sinks when Q walks away. 

Instead, he shoots back his drink and puts it down on the counter. “Another, and one for you.” 

_________________________________________________________________

“No, for real. Tell me about the label. I don’t want you guys unhappy.” Margo says, taking a long drag. “Fuck Hoberman, this stuff is lethal.”

Josh grins, “It’s a personal strain.” 

At that, Margo raises her eyebrows, “Is the reason your last manager never made you put anything out because he spent all his time stopping you from getting arrested?” 

The group exchanges an uneasy glance. Eliot leans in, takes the joint, “Among other things.”

Penny takes it from Eliot, “Respect the circle asshole,”

Eliot holds his hands up, “Let’s just say that the press are more of an issue than the police.”

“It’s pretty much medicinal,” Josh says. 

“Oh, do you have a dispensary license Doctor Dumbfuck?” Margo asks.

“Well, that’s … cruel,” Josh says, but he’s smiling.

Eliot looks between the two of them, then catches Penny’s eye. Are they flirting? Josh is, well he’s part of ‘The Physical Kids’ so he gets his fair share of girls, but — really? Margo is so far out of his league, not that stuff like that matters. But really? Hoberman. Penny rolls his eyes, pulls a face that expresses that the mysteries of Josh’s romantic life is one he never wants to solve. 

Eliot looks around, of course, no Q. Even if the whole band is out here Alice won’t want him doing anything even slightly fun. “Ends?” Josh asks with a cough; he offers the burnt end of the joint around the group. Eliot wrinkles his nose; he’s not about sucking on roach today -- that’s for when you can’t afford a decent joint and every bud is precious, not for when you’re coming up to thirty and have a singing career. Of course, Josh finishes it down to the last. “Let’s go break up the happy couple.” He says, jumping up from his seat. 

Eliot catches Margo’s eye; he offers his hand to her as she stands up. She ignores it pointedly, which makes him laugh, but she bumps her shoulder against his, “ What’s going on with this Alice chick?”

“Don’t ask. She’s been dating Q since, god -- college? They met in their first week and just sort of glommed on to each other. They’re totally wrong for each other.”

“Sure they are, “ Penny says dryly. He’s looking at his phone. “I’m gonna go--”

“Work on your dance moves?” Josh says knowingly, jabbing Penny in the ribs with an elbow. 

Penny grabs hold of Josh’s arm. “Hoberman, I swear to god. When I say that I will break your arm, I mean I will break your mother fucking arm. Stop hitting me, because you think I’m getting laid.”

“So you are seeing Kady,” Josh says with a smirk, that quickly twists into a yelp when Penny twists his arm.

“How many hands do you need to play Piano Josh?” Penny growls.

Eliot swings his arm around Margo’s shoulders, “ Come on Bambi. They’ll work it out amongst themselves. I have to tell you all of our Quentin’s dirty secrets.” He pulls her into the bar, “Although he’s going to be the easiest to manage, his secrets are more of the ‘used to LARP kind, you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for some disgusting lord of the rings sex tape,” He says, looking over at where Alice and Quentin are sat together. 

They’re actually kind of cute, Alice is leaning on him, his fingers drawing little circles on the skin of her arm. She’s talking about something that she cares about if the way she keeps frowning and stopping to tilt her head and think furiously is anything to go by. Quentin has that stupid smile on his face, all soft and dopey. He keeps kissing the top of her head. Eliot abruptly makes a 90° turn and steers them towards the bar. 

Margo frowns at him, waves her unfinished drink. “ Change of mind?”

“Nope, I can’t tell you his secrets in front of him.” Eliot leans over the bar, smiles at Mike. This time when he gets his drink it comes with a beer mat with a number scrawled on it. Eliot raises his eyebrows and pockets the mat. He avoids looking Margo in the eyes as he launches into his story. “So they met in college, probably both virgins -- both kind of nerdy and socially maladapted so they started dating. Then they just never broke up.”

“You know, a lot of people would view that as a love story.”

“ Ugh, no such thing,”

“Your last single was literally entitled ‘Small Town Love Story’” 

“And you see my problem with the label. They’re just different people, Alice is -- highly strung, neurotic even. Quentin is, well he gets stressed, but he needs someone to chill him out not make him worse. She pushes him too hard. She doesn’t think he’s creating anything that ‘challenges him’.”

“Isn’t that what you all think? That’s why you’re mad at the label, right?”

“Fuck no. We’re mad at the label because they don’t let us be us. She wants him to push further down this whole fake thing that leads to success, and a boring, play pretend nuclear family life. “

“Wow, a lot of emotions there,” Margo says, smiling up at him, “Come on. Let’s go play pretend.” She starts walking back, when Eliot doesn’t move, she rolls her eyes and stands next to him. Eliot stares over at the happy couple, his face a flat mask -- a poor disguise of the way his heart is squeezing and his throat is threatening to be completely occluded by a salty lump. Quentin’s head is tilted back in laughter, his dimples showing and his eyes are squeezed almost shut, he embraces Alice in his arms. Eliot doesn’t look at what Alice is doing, doesn’t want to see her face, the small, proud smile of having made Q laugh -- the knowledge that she is loved by him, the safety and certainty that comes from having dated someone for a year that she doesn’t appreciate -- could never appreciate -- enough.

Eliot swallows and turns away when Quentin leans in to plant a messy kiss on Alice’s face, he can hear his voice getting high pitched and teasing, “I’ll show you embarrassing,” He’s so drunk, “I’m a Teen Choice Award Male Hottie,” Eliot rolls his eyes and takes a drink, ignoring the sound of Alice’s laughter, “certified sexy man,”. 

Margo’s looking at Eliot with her eyes narrowed, Eliot feels naked under her gaze, like she’s looking right through his carefully constructed -- motherfucking airtight -- persona. Right through to the messy, disgusting, fucking homicidal, kid underneath. He focuses on the burn of the whiskey down his throat. Margo bumps shoulders with him, waits for him to look down at her. She’s smiling softly, “You’re going to be my biggest problem, aren’t you?” 

Eliot laughs, feels the tension dissipate a little, “Penny’s fucking your choreographer and Josh’s electric bill is way higher than it should be. Bambi, I’m your easiest, come on.” Eliot takes another sip, sets his jaw and walks over to the couple.

Margo slides in on the sofa opposite Alice and Quentin, Eliot sits down next to her. Immediately Margo offers her side for him to lean against. Something inside him clicks. Oh, this is who he needed. All along. Eliot doesn’t share the messy parts of himself, but with Bambi -- fuck -- has he needed to? She just saw them, she immediately understood. Now here she is, knowing that he wants comfort, knowing that he doesn’t want anyone to know. Eliot slots himself into her side, he relaxes at the gentle scratch of her fingers against his scalp. The sensation strengthens him. He fixes Alice with a cold stare, “ Well hello love birds, hate to interrupt your frankly disgusting flirting, but Daddy was getting bored.” 

Quentin chokes in the way he always does when Eliot casually calls himself that, his face going bright red. Eliot doesn’t feel guilty at the amount of pleasure he takes from it. Alice pushes herself up to be seated — another reason why she doesn’t deserve him. She’s always so uptight, so afraid to show that she likes him. Eliot would be better than that, Eliot would make sure that everybody knew who he loved. Not that Eliot has anything even close to love for Q. It’s affection for a colleague, an interest in his bandmate’s love life running smoothly, nothing at all to do with having a crush on a straight friend. No Quentin is not Eliot’s type, no interest and no use thinking about it, because as previously stated Quentin Coldwater is 100% straight. 

Eliot smirks at Margo and leans back, swirling his drink in his hand. She takes the queue and leans forward, “So you’re Alice? I’ve heard a lot about you. “ She’s smiling, but her eyes are analytical. 

Alice sniffs and looks away, then she sets her jaw and looks Margo dead in the eyes. Bambi doesn’t flinch — just turns the corner of her mouth up in a surprised, pleased, Cheshire Cat smile. Another reason to like her. “I wouldn’t believe anything you read about me in the papers. They’ve got a,” Quentin’s hand goes to the small of her back, comforting, she twitches away, “a vendetta.”She says harshly. 

Eliot catches the hurt look in Q’s eyes, the way he doesn’t know exactly what to do with his hands. “ They don’t have a vendetta, Alice. They’re just making assumptions based on the evidence you’re giving them.” At that, Quentin tilts his head and glares at Eliot. 

“ I’m sorry?” Alice says, her voice turning high pitched and her back somehow getting straighter. 

“It’s okay, we all make mistakes,” Eliot says, slumping back in his seat and trailing his fingers through the condensation on the side of his glass. 

“Some of us do, while others get the brunt of the deal.” Alice’s tone is heated, Eliot can see her tight grip on her wine glass. God, that girl is too highly strung. “Maybe, we wouldn’t have to spend all our time defending ourselves if you—” 

“Alice.” Quentin cuts in, his tone sharp. Alice looks as if she’s going to ignore him, reveal whatever grudge she’s been bearing, but she deflates and settles down. Eliot and Alice look at each other across the table like two cats, hackles raised, ready to fight. 

Margo laughs, bright and melodic, “Well, nice to meet you, Alice. I love how quick you are to get your claws out.” 

Alice frowns, clearly confused, “ It’s not funny—” She starts to say. 

Margo cuts her off, “Honey, I never said it was. I think it’s admirable. Too many women let the press stamp all over them. I certainly don’t let anyone talk shit about my friends or me.”

“Oh um, thanks,” Alice says, staring resolutely at the floor, her face going pink. 

“How about we try and extend that to the whole band, huh?” Margo says delicately. She waits for a response, but when none comes she leans in. “In the interest of no actual bitch fights —”

“I was not—” 

“Bitch fight?!”

Eliot and Alice speak at the same time, but Margo just holds up a finger silencing them. It is astounding the way that woman can control a room. Alice and Eliot are hardly the two easiest people to get to back down. 

“— how about you tell me what you’re defending yourself from?” Margo finishes, her large eyes locked on Alice’s until Alice is forced to look away, blinking furiously. 

Quentin takes her hand, interlacing their fingers together, this time she doesn’t pull away. “It’s not a big deal, “ He starts to say, but a look from Alice makes him blanche, “ or for me maybe it’s not a big deal. I don’t really; I don’t get the worst of it you know? Um… so you know we have, a pretty, um …” He looks around, eyes searching for the right word, “ dedicated set of fans.” 

“Fucking obsessive you mean” Alice mutters. 

“Play nice, they pay for your fancy school” Eliot interjects, he winces a little at the glare he earns from Q. 

“I don’t pay for Alice’s tuition.” He says, and the anger in his tone makes it clear that this is a fight the couple have had before, one he lost. 

Alice scoffs, “ I wouldn’t live off my boyfriend’s money. I have a job arsehole.” Quentin’s hand runs up and down Alice’s arm. She shakes him off again. Oh, of course, Alice’s desire to be independent meets Quentin’s never-ending lake of love — who will win? 

“ Take your own advice El,” Margo says. The phrase would hurt if it weren’t for her gentle touch on his knee, warm and calm and somehow full of love. God, he’s only known her for a week, and Eliot is 80% sure he would kill for Bambi. He rolls his eyes and takes a drink, allows his gaze to shift to the bar where he happily loses himself in the way Mike’s biceps bulge when he pulls a beer. 

“— between Eliot and me—” Eliot snaps back to the conversation at Quentin saying his name.

“Huh?” 

“ I was just saying about the fans and —” Quentin says, frowning at Eliot. 

“Oh, the huge amount of obscene fan work?” Eliot says with a grin, “ What’s wrong with that? Creative expression.” 

“What’s wrong is that it culminates with me getting death threats.” Alice says coldly, “and conspiracies about how I’m forcing Quentin to be straight.”

Eliot chokes on his drink as he tries not to laugh, god Quentin as the one being forced to play straight. Wow, the fanbase may be creative, but they’re not smart. “What with your magic straight making vagina?” He says, unable to stop smiling. 

Alice just glares at him, “ of course, this is hilarious to you.”

“ Well, yeah. It’s hardly like Quentin, and I are going to shack up over some fan fiction.” Eliot says with a shrug, Quentin avoids looking him in the eye. 

“Well no, but you could, er, try a bit harder,” Alice says, stuttering. 

Eliot’s face darkens, “ try a bit harder with what?” He asks, voice low and dangerous. 

“You know.” Alice says, squirming under his gaze. Margo is looking between the two of them with a little frown across her pretty face, but she hasn’t told him to shut up yet. 

“I don’t, Alice.” Every word is sharp. 

“Not flirting with each other, or, well come on look at you.” 

Eliot barks out a laugh, “Of course. Of course. Well don’t worry, I’ll try harder not to steal your man — it’s not my fault that he needs a friend, someone he can fucking laugh with every once in a while.” Eliot stands up, again avoids looking at Quentin. 

He can hear Quentin spluttering and beginning to speak, “El, that’s not fair—”

Eliot cuts over him, “ As for the other part. I’m already trying my damnedest to look straight, babe, so that’s a conversation you’re going to want to have with my fucking stylist.” He turns to Margo. “Heads up, I’m very attracted to men. The label thinks that if it gets out that I, you know” He leans in conspiratorially, “fuck them. It might mess up our record sales.” He spins around to face Q and Alice, “ or maybe the perfect couple over here would be so scandalised to be caught up in the middle of a big gay scandal Q’d leave the band and start a Christian folk solo career with his boring blonde girlfriend.” He doesn’t stay to listen to their response, just turns back to Margo. “ So I’m going to go and have some fantastic queer ass sex with that bartender, and you just make sure that nothing comes out that would jeopardise poor Alice’s sensibilities.” 

“It’s not just me.” Alice says quietly. A mistake. 

“Oh? No, you’re just capitalising on the label’s inherent homophobia, just going along with the trend, are you? Of course, you are, god forbid you have one single independent thought.” Eliot says harshly. 

Quentin reaches out and grabs his arm, “Eliot. That’s enough. You know it’s not about you being into men. It’s just the fans,” 

Eliot wrenches his arm away, looks down his nose at Quentin, “Yeah, sure. Like she isn’t fucking grateful for any attention that comes her way. Fucking session musician.” It’s a weird insult, definitely not one of his best, but he’s going to stick by it. 

“Eliot, come on, don’t be a dick.” Quentin says. 

“Have you not heard? I love dick.” Eliot exclaims, another harsh laugh escaping his throat. 

“ El, seriously.” Quentin says, looking sad for some reason.

Eliot just shakes his head, “don’t worry, I’m leaving.” He says as he stalks away. “I think the night’s pretty much over.” He hisses at a stunned Josh, approaching the table with two drinks. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to LeakingLlama for beta reading!


	3. Mike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one includes some homophobic language and reference to previous dubiously consensual sexual experiences. If you want to skip that part then just skip the whole paragraph starting: 'Eliot feels a fist around his heart' This chapter also includes the f-slur.

Knock, knock, knock. Then bang, bang, BANG. Then “ Eliot Waugh! I know you’re in there! Let me in! I swear to god I will gut you like a fish.” Ugh. Fucking hell. Eliot rolled out of bed, wrapped his robe around his body and stumbled over to the door. He opened it and looked Margo up and down with what he hoped was an appraising gaze that found her sorely lacking. In all likelihood, he just came across as hungover and pissed off. Margo just slipped past him and made her way to his kitchen.

“Um? Hello? I didn’t invite you in.” Eliot says exasperated, following her to the kitchen. 

Margo sets her bag down on the counter, Eliot winces — that is a food preparation area, not for gross bags that have been outside. He’s stopped from saying anything by Margo pulling out a bottle of Prosecco and a carton of orange juice. “I’m not a vampire.” She says with a smile, that makes Eliot question that. “Ice?” She asks, but she’s already pulling open the freezer and getting the ice cube tray out. 

“There’s— yeah, you found—” Eliot flounders for a moment, he’s way too fucking hung over for this. He pulls his hand down his face with a groan then puts on his best Eliot Waugh impression, “to what do I owe the pleasure, Bambi?”

“Pleasure? This isn’t a pleasure, this is practically a cunt fucking intervention.”Margo says, sliding a mimosa over to him. 

Eliot takes it bemused, “ Do you normally bring mimosa’s to your interventions?” He raises an eyebrow and takes a sip. From behind him, he hears a door open, god, of course. Mike. Eliot doesn’t turn around, “Just stay put darling, I’m sure Margo will be leaving presently.” He calls out. 

Margo looks over his shoulder, that shark smile back on her face, “Hi. I’d hunker down if I were you, I’ve brought an agenda.” And she has. Margo pulls a mother-fucking binder out of the bag. 

Eliot glares at her, “Guess I’ll learn not to blow up at you huh?” He says sarcastically. 

Margo smiles sweetly, “ Yes you will.” 

Eliot puts the mimosa down, “ Can I please get dressed?” He says with mock formality. 

“Whatever you need, I’ll be right here.” Margo sits down at the kitchen island, kicks off her heels. 

Eliot shakes his head and turns to Mike, who’s standing in his underwear in the doorway. His hair is messed up from sleep and he looks thoroughly pissed off to be awake. Eliot feels a jolt of pleasure at the purple marks on his neck. “Sorry honey, Daddy’s got work.” He says steering the other man into the bedroom, “I’ll call you.” 

Mike smirks at him, takes hold of the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss, tongue darting into his mouth, teeth nipping at his lower lip. “ You better.” He gets dressed quickly, waits for Eliot to throw on a pair of skinny jeans and a button-up shirt —because there are no excuses for poor fashion choices. Then he pulls Eliot to his lips again, bodies flush against each other. When Eliot pulls away he’s panting and the sudden tightness of his pants sparks a new wave of annoyance at Margo. He’d have really liked to go for round two. He says as much, which just makes Mike laugh. “Hey, you know where I’ll be.”

Eliot walks him to his front door and kisses him dramatically in the doorway -- if Margo's going to interrupt his morning she can put up with his theatrics. He squeezes Mike's butt, eliciting a delightfulul little groan from him. "I'll call you." He says as Mike leaves. 

Eliot shuts the door then turns around to glare at Margo, who has her feet up on a barstool. She looks up at him, “Ready?” 

Eliot takes a seat opposite her and picks up his drink, he waves a hand at her, “sure,”

“So, for someone supposedly in the closet, you seem pretty” Her eyes cast around in thought, “slutty.” 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Margo looks him dead in the eye. “I never said it was problematic. It’s just a consideration. You don’t seem too worried about it coming out.” 

“Ha. Yeah. I’m not the one insisting I stay closeted.”

“The label? You boys do love to blame all your problems on it.”

“ They were pretty clear Bambi,”

“Hmm?”

“Our fans are mostly teenage girls, tweens a lot of them. People whose parents control their buying power. So it’s in the interests of the band to ensure we keep our squeaky clean image. At least on average, they want us to be ‘bad boys’ not ‘bad men’,”

“ So they’ve said they’ll drop you if you come out?” Margo flips through the binder.

Eliot seizes on the opportunity to divert her, “You didn’t prep an agenda did you?” 

Margo laughs, “Nope. This is just my Eliot folder,”

“You have a whole folder for me?” Eliot hates to admit it, but he’s kind of impressed. 

“Yep,” Margo says distractedly, then she arrives at the page she’s looking at.

She flips the binder around so Eliot can see. It’s an NDA, signed by — “What the fuck is this?” 

“You know what an NDA is.” 

“Sure, but — Fuck Margo. “

“Calm down, it’s standard practice. “ 

“ Did you hunt everyone’s exes down or just mine? I knew this guy in fucking high school, Margo.” 

“ Firstly, not me. Save your anger for the bell-end you had before. Secondly, I thought you knew. Hell, I thought this was your idea.” 

“Why the hell would it be my idea?” 

“I thought you were dealing with some internalised homophobia,”

Eliot gestures to himself, “What about me indicated that Margo?”

Margo rolls her eyes, “You see my confusion.” 

This is too fucking much, it’s one thing to be forced into the closet, it’s another to be asked to justify that. Eliot stands up and walks to the window, he pulls out a cigarette. 

“You’ll ruin your voice,” Margo calls out. 

“Get it to sign an NDA.” Eliot bites back. Then they stare at each other in silence for a minute, each of them trying to work out what the hell he’s just said. 

“Get your voice to sign an NDA?” Margo says, her pitch getting higher. Her mouth wobbles as she tries to keep a straight face. Eliot deflates, giving her permission to laugh. 

“Sure okay, that didn’t make sense. But tonally—” Eliot gestures with his cigarette as he talks, “tonally I’m in the right. It’s fucked up that I can’t do anything without everyone I see being chased by lawyers.”

“Do you sleep with everyone you meet?”

“No comment.” 

Margo laughs, then sets her face again. Serious Bambi mode activated. “Look El, I don’t want to force you to do shit you don’t want to. If you want to come out we can do that.” 

Eliot feels a fist tight on his heart, a phantom pain on his cheekbone. A memory of being kicked out of home, of being told in a soft voice by a family member who honestly thought they loved him ‘ You’ll never be happy if you choose this. It’s not right Eliot’. The feeling of arriving in New York all bright-eyed and hopeful, having a manager pick him up and tell him he was going to be a star — having that same manager fuck him and tell him that no-one wants to see a gay pop star. “They’ll drop me.” He says flatly.

“El, I’m pretty sure if they do that we have a strong case for unfair dismissal.” 

“I’m not — I’m not doing that. I’m not going to be the fag who sues their label.” 

“Okay, so maybe a little bit of internalised homophobia too.”

“It’s not internalised, it’s a logical reaction to shitty external circumstances.” 

“Shit okay. Whatever you need to say to deal with that cognitive dissonance.” 

Something about that hits a nerve, who does Margo think she is? Some privileged asshole walking into his life and telling him off for not being authentic. It’s easy to be authentic when you have a trust fund to fall back on. He throws his cigarette butt out the window. “You don’t know me. You don’t get to talk shit about the decisions I make to stay safe.” 

“I’d like to know you, I was starting to like you.” 

“Well, you don’t fucking get to.” 

Margo sighs and shuffles in her stool, “I’ll go first”

“How about you just leave?” 

“Shut up, I’m sharing. “ Margo pours herself another drink, takes a sip then starts talking. “ So I come from LA, from a pretty wealthy family —”

“Lucky you.”

“Well, in a way yes. In other ways definitely not. They weren’t okay with me, wanted me to get married and shut up. Really wanted me to shut up. My dad especially was, well very much not okay with having a daughter ‘talk back’ to him.”

“We’ve all got Daddy Issues,” 

“You know, I thought that too. But I’m starting to realise that not everybody does. It’s not 100% normal to be afraid of your father. It’s definitely not normal to run away at 18 and never look back.”

Eliot swallows, “ Sorry, I —”

“Didn’t know? Yeah, turns out you don’t know me either sunshine. But seeing as I’ve revealed my big dark secret, how about you spill too?” 

Eliot lights another cigarette, “ I’m from Indiana.” Margo raises her eyebrows, “I’m a gay kid from Indiana, I grew up on a fucking farm. I know more about shit that I ever want to know. My dad wasn’t cool with having a ‘Fairy’ for a son. So I left— well I was kicked out. When it came out that I was, actually into men and not just a bit of a girly boy, it was pretty —” Eliot looked out the window, avoiding looking at Margo. He swallows, tries to push away the memory of spending all his savings on a bus ticket, spending the journey nursing a black eye, broken ribs and a broken arm — that to this day doesn’t play the same. “Pretty fucking clear that I wasn’t welcome. So I don’t have a backup. If my manager drops me I don’t have a daddy to run home to. “ He says, attempting flippancy. He tries not to think of his mother, of disappointing her, because he hates to admit it, but maybe he doesn’t want word to get home that he’s dating men. Maybe he’d like her to think that he’s happy, think that he could be the son she always wanted. 

Margo nods, “So coming out isn’t an option for you? Not unless you know you won’t be dropped.”

Eliot’s voice is thick when he answers, “No.”

“Who else knows about your home life?”

“Just you, and Q.”

“Q?”

“Yeah turns out Quentin Makepeace , I know, Coldwater is a sucker for collecting lost sheep at Christmastime.” 

  
  



	4. Last Christmas (I gave you my heart)

“No honestly, don’t worry about it. “ Quentin said, basically wrestling Eliot’s bag off him and heading up the path to his house. Eliot wasn’t convinced, he hung back by the car, ostensibly checking the hand break was on, actually shitting himself. Quentin waited for him by the door then said in an exasperated tone, “You can’t make a break for it, you’re my ride back.” 

Eliot rolled his eyes and laughed. “It’s insane that you’re 25 and still can’t drive.” He walked up to Q’s house, which was — quaint. It was very New Jersey suburbs, it made total sense that a place like this would result in a cute, straight, little nerd like Quentin Coldwater. There was a wreath on the door, Eliot felt an unexpected pang of longing for an Indiana Christmas. It was shitty for 70% of his time there — who can forget his first underage Christmas drink? Followed by his first underage Christmas blow job, preceded only by his , unfortunately not first, Christmas beating — but as a child Christmas on the farm was pretty damn magical. He swallowed the memory of his first boyfriend turning up with a bottle of wine and promptly ruining Christmas for everyone. Aside from Eliot — for whom the giddy thrill of having the shit knocked out of you then getting drunk on cheap wine with your not so secret anymore boyfriend proved an aphrodisiac, but then what isn’t at 16? No, no point thinking about Christmas past, only the present, and the present is playing happy families with Q. 

The door swings open to reveal Ted Coldwater in a terrible Christmas jumper and sporting the biggest smile Eliot has ever seen. Within moments both of them are pulled into a hug. There’s a tussle over the bags, is this the Coldwater version of the Alpha Male? Ted wins, but the victory is pyrrhic, he’s followed by a chirping Quentin, “ Dad, didn’t the doctor say you needed to rest?”

“My son has come back for Christmas with a —“ Ted glances at Eliot unsure.

With a spike of fear in his chest Eliot blurts out, “Friend, Mr Coldwater. Bandmate, colleague really.” 

Quentin gives him a weird look but if Ted just chuckles and says, “Friend. I’m not going to make you do everything.” He rests the bags on the bottom of the stairs. 

“Maybe we want to do everything.” Quentin says helplessly. 

“Tough shit, Curly Q.” Ted says ruffling Q’s hair, he squirms away laughing. Ted turns to Eliot. “You okay with sharing with Quentin? I’d offer you the sofa bed, but Julia’s coming tonight and well, it wouldn’t be fair to have a repeat of Christmas ’09” 

Quentin blushes and Eliot files away a reminder to ask him about that later, “No problem Mr Coldwater, if I can handle a tour-bus with him I’m sure a bedroom’s fine.” 

______________________________________________________________

Later that night Eliot strikes. They’re both pleasantly drunk and dressed in pyjamas, sent to bed early so Santa can come, because turns out Quentin is a sucker for tradition, right down to putting the carrot and mince pie out. Eliot wonders if he’ll be made to shout up the chimney for Santa. Eliot’s on the floor, while Q has his twin bed, but they’re both sat up, wrapped in blankets. “So what happened in 2009?”

Quentin blushes a delightful shade of rhubarb again and buries his face in his pillow, “I cannot believe my dad told you about that.” 

“He didn’t tell me, he alluded to it. You’re going to tell me.” Eliot says, sitting up on his heels and tugging the pillow away from Q. 

“No I am not” Quentin tugs it back, pulling Eliot towards him.

“Come on, how bad can it be?” Eliot jumps up onto the bed.

“Bad!” Quentin pulls the covers up over his head. 

Eliot tugs fruitlessly at the covers, “Come on, you were 14, we’ve all done weird shit at 14.” There’s a muffled groan from underneath the covers . Eliot smirks and then tickles him. It has exactly the response he wanted, Quentin bucks and squeals and to be honest Eliot is very proud of himself for not getting thrown off the bed. “I’ll stop when you tell me!” Eliot says narrowly avoiding being kicked. He climbs on top of Q “ I’m not telling you!” Quentin says through a mouthful of duvet. Eliot sighs and catches the hand that’s come flying at his face. He grabs Quentin’s other hand and pushes them both down over his head. Then holding him down with one hand Eliot keeps tickling him. 

Finally Quentin concedes and a small, tired voice says something unintelligible aside from the loud “Fine!”

Eliot doesn’t relinquish his hold, just tugs the duvet down so he can see Quentin’s very red face. He smirks at him. “What was that Q?”

“I got a boner.” Quentin says avoiding looking at Eliot, who falls apart in laughter. 

“That’s like not a big deal, you were 14!”Eliot swats at Quentin and climbs off him. 

“It was embarrassing!” 

“That cannot be the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you in this bedroom.” 

“I’m not telling you the most embarrassing thing!” 

Eliot holds his hands out, a mock threat to tickle again. He holds his hands up at Quentin’s warning look. “Fine, but just so you know I’m very disappointed.” He says with a pout, then he grabs his toiletry bag and hops to his feet, “I’m going to brush my teeth,” He says expectantly. Quentin doesn’t move. “Q, where’s your bathroom?” 

Quentin squirms, “It’s two doors down, but ah, the tap’s funny you have to —“

“Why don’t you just show me?” 

Quentin goes red, “You just have to wiggle it, like turn it sort of on then half off then all the way on,” 

A slow smile spreads across Eliot’s face, in one fluid motion he rips the duvet off Quentin, revealing the second inappropriate Christmas boner Eliot knows about. 

Eliot raised his eyebrows then in a moment of unexpected boldness, “you want me to take care of that for you?”

Quentin stares at him, “Oh— um — er, I don’t—“

Fuck. Of course, this is not the way straight people joke with each other. God Eliot, you’ve been let into Q’s family home at Christmas. Now is not the time for a shitty blow job joke. Eliot backtracks, “ Sorry, I was— it’s— sorry that was , um—“

“Okay.” Quentin cuts over him, “If you want.”

“Rude of me, I’ll just go— wait what?” 

“You can take care of it, if you want.”

“Wait really? What about Alice?”

Quentin looks away, swallows, “we’re on a break.”

“Oh shit, Q I’m sorry—“

“Do you want to talk about my feelings or do you want to suck my cock?” 

What the fuck? Has Quentin been abducted by aliens? Eliot chooses not to look a gift horse in the mouth, “the later, definitely the later.” He says with uncharacteristic nerves. Then he puts his face on, calm, suave, sexy. Eliot can do sexy. In control, he can definitely do in control when it comes to sex. He sits down on the bed and reaches for Q. Eliot debates kissing him, but as soon as he leans in a thought smashes into his brain. Like a neon sign, ‘he won’t want to kiss you, you dumb fuck,’. Eliot pulls back and tugs off Quentin's pyjama top instead, busies himself grazing his teeth along the central line of Q’s chest so he doesn’t have to see the relief in Q’s eyes. 

He kisses his way down Quentin’s stomach, revelling in the downy hair and slight softness resting on top of strong muscles. When he gets to Quentin’s waistband he flicks his eyes up to Q’s face — a silent questioning moment — are you sure? Quentin’s head is tipped back, revealing the perfect line of his neck ; at the sudden cessation of sensation he jerks his head down to look at Eliot. Concern paints his face, “you — er, if you don’t want —“ He starts to say, his face reddening. 

Eliot laughs, good enough. “I want to. I just wasn’t sure if…” He lets himself trail off and wraps his hand around the hard line of Quentin’s cock through his pants. 

Q gasps, bites his lip, “Yes fuck, obviously El.” He blurts out, his tone deliciously bratty. 

“Well then.” Eliot says with a smirk, he yanks down Q’s pants, takes in the glorious sight of Quentin’s hard cock. It’s a decent size, not outrageous like Eliot’s own, but good. It’s thick. Red, the veins popping, it’s beautiful. Eliot takes the head into his mouth and Quentin stifles a moan, when Eliot glances up at him he sees Q has shoved his fist into his mouth.

At the questioning raise of his eye brows, Quentin takes his hand away, “I don’t want my dad to hear.” 

Eliot laughs, the vibration running down Q’s dick and drawing another poorly hidden moan out of him. Q shoves his fist back into his mouth, he’s going to have teeth marks there tomorrow, and Eliot goes back to the task at hand. 

Quentin’s cock is pink, petal-soft , so fucking hard. Eliot looks up at Q. They make eye contact as Eliot slowly, slowly, lets the head push through his lips. Quentin’s trembling, trying his best not to buck up into Eliot’s mouth. Eliot smirks and sucks hard, he’s rewarded by Q’s hips bucking forward, pushing his dick into Eliot’s mouth. Eliot swallows then pulls off. “Did no-one teach you proper blowjob etiquette?” 

“Fuck off.” 

Eliot takes Q’s spare hand and puts it in his hair. “You’re lucky I like it rough.” Then he dives back onto Quentin’s cock, right down to the root. Quentin makes a strangled sound and his hand tightens in Eliot’s hair. Eliot moans his pleasure and pushes forward so his nose is pressed against Q’s hair. Quentin is bucking his hips up, barely restrained. Eliot pulls off, a string of saliva coming with him as he lifts his head up, he’s panting. Quentin looks wrecked, his hands still loosely in Eliot’s hair, he’s panting too, his hips shaking as his cock seeks out the tight heat of Eliot’s mouth. “Fuck my mouth.” 

“What?” Quentin asks, his eyes widening. 

Eliot wraps his hand around Q’s cock, stroking it once, twice. Then he stops, just holding the base, “If you want, you could fuck my mouth.” He says forcing himself to make his tone casual, he looks up to Q’s eyes, “Would you like that?” Quentin’s mouth opens and closes silently, Eliot takes the opportunity to run his finger along the length of his cock. He takes the head into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and tasting the salty pre-cum. “Hmm?” He asks, pulling off and looking up at Quentin. 

“Uh — fuck El, yes. Of course — fuck,” Quentin drags a hand through his hair, giving him an adorable cowlick. Eliot slides off the bed and kneels next to it. He waits expectantly. “Oh? Like that? Fuck —“

Eliot laughs, “ Come on, I can take it.” He says teasingly. 

“Fuck El,” Q moves so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, Eliot between his legs. Eliot takes the opportunity to run his tongue over the slit of Q’s cock, he’s rewarded by a hand tensing in his hair.“Just, like, slap me if you want me to stop,”

“You want me to slap you? I can do that without you needing to stop honey,”

“Like my thigh! Just, I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Sure okay, like this?” Eliot taps Quentin’s thigh, the fact that he’s instigating a non-verbal safe word is crazy hot and is also making his heart do things that Eliot doesn’t want to think about. Good thing blowjobs do a fantastic job of clearing his mind. 

“Yeah like that,” Quentin brings the hand not in Eliot’s hair to Eliot’s jaw. He strokes his thumb down it gently, “ God El, you’re —“Eliot cuts him off by lunging forward onto Quentin’s dick, “unnnf — El, oh my god.” Eliot smirks and relaxes his throat. Gently Quentin starts to move his head, driving his cock into Eliot’s throat. Eliot moans and Quentin speeds up the pace, until he’s thrusting with sharp staccato burns, his hand tightening on Eliot’s hair and drawing delicious sparks of pain from him. “ El — fuck, I’m gonna — El — Eliot, can I?”

Eliot garbles out a “mm hmm” and pushes forward to take Quentin down his throat. 

“Fuck Eliot!” Quentin cries out as he comes. Eliot swallows it down then pulls off. Quentin is looking down at him glassy eyed, gently he pulls on Eliot’s hair, attempting to drag him towards the bed. 

Eliot shakes his way free and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, “I’m gonna go brush my teeth.” 

Quentin frowns, “Aren’t you? Um…” Q looks pointedly at Eliot’s erection, still in his pyjamas. 

Eliot laughs, his voice cracking into a strange falsetto, “Oh no. Honestly — it’s”  _ You’re not into that _ “You don’t have to—“

“El, come on, I want to, obviously I—“ 

Eliot stands up, “no Q. I — I want to brush my teeth, then we can sleep.” Eliot says with finality, he’s not going to demand a reciprocal blow job from the straight guy. Before Q can argue Eliot grabs his toiletry bag and heads to the bathroom. 

He wanks himself off thinking about the glassy look in Quentin’s eyes and the breathy little moans that escaped his perfect plump lips. It doesn’t take long. 

When he leaves the bathroom, Q’s waiting outside, but. If he heard anything he doesn’t say so. They just awkwardly shuffle past each other. 

Eliot settles down on the floor, so when Q returns he’s already in his sleeping bag scrolling through twitter. 

“El, come up to the bed.” He says with a frown. 

“No, honestly it’s fine. I’m comfy here.”

“ Eliot, you just gave me a —“

“Q, it’s your bed and Alice—“

“Isn’t here. Come on. No boundaries on tour.”

“We’re not on tour.” Eliot rolls his eyes but he stands up and slides under the covers anyway. 

Quentin shuffles up behind him, wraps his arms around him and snuggles into his back. Eliot can feel his soft breathing against his neck, he jolts a little at the cold bump of Quentin’s nose. He’s actually properly snuggling into him. Eliot decidedly does not think about how cute it is that Q gets all clingy and cuddly after an orgasm. “No boundaries at Christmas either.” Quentin mumbles into Eliot’s back. 

Eliot holds on to Quentin’s arm where it’s wrapped against his chest, drawing a contented little sigh and an attempt to snuggle impossibly closer from Q. “Fine, no boundaries at Christmas.” 

  
  



	5. This song was about me being a dick.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another short chapter, but I wanted to separate out the Coldwater Christmas flashback (mostly for the last Christmas title I won't lie) expect some slightly longer chapters in the future as we get properly into the next act! As always thank you to Peaches and Plums, and everybody who comments <3

When Eliot finishes telling his, frankly pathetic, story Margo just looks at him for a long moment. Long enough to make Eliot feel raw, just as he’s about to walk over to his kitchen and busy himself making drinks they don’t need she speaks. “The song was about him.” 

It’s not a question, Eliot breathes out a little laugh, looks out the window. “You have no idea how ironic it is that you cast him as the fucking boyfriend.”

Margo smiles, “ You know the song is pretty explicit about how you’d be saving him from a terrible relationship. There’s a reason the director wanted to shoot it like that.” 

“I didn’t write a love song about saving Coldwater from his shitty backwoods Indiana life. That’s pretty dissonant even for me.” 

Margo laughs, “No, I mean.” She takes a cigarette from his packet, at his raised eyebrows she smirks, “Managers perks.”She bullies him out of the way and joins him sitting in the window. “I mean,” she takes a drag, “Is that what you feel? That you’d be saving him from his godawful relationship with Alice? Because just from a keeping the peace angle that’s some big shit.” 

“ It wasn’t like that, not originally. I wrote it because I was with someone who was cheating on their partner to be with me. “

“Wait, I thought you said he and Alice were on a break.” 

“ That wasn’t the first time it happened.” 

“Oh shit, you are the playboy we paint you as.”

“Fuck off. I didn’t feel fucking good about it. I wasn’t proud of being that arsehole who sleeps with people in relationships. It’s a habit that believe me I feel deeply guilty about. That’s what the songs about, about loving someone and knowing that you shouldn’t have them. Of not being a good enough person to say no and let them be happy. Then the label heard it and took all the emotion out of it. They made it into this weird bad boy anthem. Like cheating is okay, because I’m hot. Like a woman is to be won in conquest and if I win her other then I’ve won and I deserve to have her. You get how that like feels shitty, right? I essentially put a bit of myself out there, all vulnerable and gross. Then had it sent back me repackaged so that I look like the good guy, and I get to teach teenage girls everywhere that it’s okay to run away with the bad guy because he’ll be good at heart. Do you know how many shitty relationships that could cause? Like I do not want to be the poster boy for saviour syndrome - you can’t save your lover if they’re a dick when you meet them they’re just a dick. This song was about me being a dick. “

“Okay, you’re a dick.” Margo says with a smile, “ Show me some of your music.” 

“You’ve heard my music.”

“No, your actual music. Pre-label. Show me something you’ve written just for you.” 

“You don’t want to hear it,”

“I think that literally, all I’ve been saying to you for the past week is that I need to hear more of your music. That hasn’t stopped because you’re feeling an emotion babe.” 

“I’m not feeling any emotions aside from hungover.”

“Sure. Come on, show me something, or your next big single is definitely going to be written by Todd.”

Eliot considers this possibility, ugh. No Todd is great in small doses, and he is exactly perfect for the label, but a whole Todd song, lyrics and all, fuck that shit. “Fine, come on.” Eliot stands up and walks over to his office. He holds the door open for Margo. 

She whistles when she takes the little room in. Eliot has to admit this room is his favourite in the apartment, it’s not exactly in keeping with the rest of the place, but it’s all him. This room is pure maximalism. He’s kept it pretty much the same from when he first put it together in his first studio apartment. Back then this room was all he had and it was much smaller with one grimy window that looked out onto a brick wall, a tiny little kitchen that was basically just a fridge and a microwave and a fucking loft bed. There’s not much an 18-year-old can afford just off of busking — at that point he hadn’t yet discovered the specific advantages his body could get him. But under the loft bed, that was his space, his perfect little section of the world that was all his. Purple brocade wallpaper, favourite pieces of sheet music in golden frames, a fiddle with the strings cut stuck to the wall — a, admittedly kind of pretentious, reminder that nostalgia is sweet but home is dangerous. An armchair he dug out the dump and painstakingly reupholstered, an ugly globe that opened up to reveal a secret compartment for booze. He’d kept it all through every move and remade the room. As the room had gotten bigger, and became exclusively his music space, he’d populated it with more instruments, an antique upright piano, at least ten guitars of the acoustic and electric variety, because maybe he had a fucking issue with collecting things. But they’re pretty and they make him happy and he’s got the goddamn money. He still plays his first though, never out, never in front of other people, but it’s his old ratty acoustic that never manages to be quite in tune, covered in stickers of things he thought were cool as a teenager, that he composes on. It’s propped up on its stand next to the armchair now. 

Margo walks over and experimentally twangs at a string. “It’s flat.”

Eliot strides over and picks up the guitar, holding it close to him and sitting down on the chaise-Longe, he has to restrain himself from apologising to the instrument on her behalf. “ It’s meant to be.” He says sharply. “Don’t touch my things”

It hits him how petulant that sounds at the same time Margo says, “alright prima donna. I’ll keep my hands to myself. “She sits down on the armchair and crosses her legs expectantly. Now play me something.” 

“I don’t have anything,” Eliot says, but he knows he’s lying. Margo just raises her eyebrows at him. “ Okay, but this is mine. I don’t want it turned into another fucking sad girl anthem. Promise?”

“I make no promises.” 

“Bambi please?”

“I won’t turn it into anything you don’t want me to”

Eliot supposes that’s good enough. He starts to play his guitar, losing himself in the slight wrongness of the tuning, the specific way he has to place his fingers to get it to sound right — the uniqueness of it. It’s like his voice, his face, his everything. Slightly wrong, but played in the right way perfect. He avoids looking at Margo when he starts to sing. 

When Eliot finishes the song he doesn’t know where to look. He settles for carefully putting his guitar back on its stand. Margo waits until she has eye contact to speak, “Honey, that was beautiful.” She says with total honesty, her big eyes wide and glistening. 

Eliot shakes his head, “It’s not meant to be a sad song.” He opens the door to the office and holds it open expectantly. Margo acquiesces and walks out. As her heels click onto the hallway floor Eliot feels himself release a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. Maybe it’s crazy to keep a room that you don’t really let people in; a room that represents some deep, dark, beautiful part of you that you’re never sure whether to love or hate. Burn up or heal? Maybe that’s the whole thing, everybody has a heart in the walls, a painting in the attic. Eliot has this. A room filled with guitars and a stupid attempt to recreate peace within a war zone.

As Eliot shuts the door he’s filled with a sudden desire to tear the whole damn place apart. Margo isn’t saying anything, she’s just sat on his sofa waiting. Fuck. This is why he doesn’t play his own shit, why he has an electric guitar and keyboard in a cold boring little room that was probably a storage closet but the acoustics were good and it was easy to soundproof so eventually it became his ‘The Physical Kids Eliot’ space. Fuck her for making him think he could let him into his ‘Eliot Waugh’ space. He maybe shuts the door a little too hard. 

Margo pats the sofa next to her, “Come sit. I want to talk about the song.” 

Eliot sits on the armchair, tries to corral his body into treating the chair like a throne. This should not throw him off this much, a stupid fucking queer Christmas song should not have shaken him this much. Before Margo has a chance to say anything he stands up abruptly and walks to the kitchen. He contemplates the mimosa’s in the fridge, pours half a large wine glass full then tops of with vodka. Eliot takes a long sip, as the cold liquid tingles and burns his throat he feels his mask return. He’s Eliot fucking Waugh, king of New York City. No-one fucking knows where he came from. He decides who the fuck he is and right now, right fucking now he’s just a man speaking to his manager about a song. This song doesn’t need to mean shit, this person doesn’t need to mean shit. He’s Eliot Waugh and he doesn’t need validation from anyone. 

He sits down, the chair feels like a throne. Eliot smiles, “So Bambi. What did you think?”

“I think there’s more to you than you let show.” 

Eliot laughs, “You already knew that.”

“I didn’t know you could make it into art.”

“I thought art came from pain.”

Margo pulls a face, “ugh, that’s just some bullshit people tell themselves. It’s totally okay that they’re fucked up because they get art from it.”

“Oh, so I’m fucked up for no reason?”

“No, just maybe not some cosmic reason. Maybe you’re just fucked up and you make good art and you’ve managed to put some painful emotions into art. You don’t need them all babe. Two out of three.”

“But if I wasn’t fucked up where would the painful emotions come from?”

“Are you saying that regular people can’t feel sad?”

“It’s not a sad song.”

“No?”

“It’s a fucking Christmas song, it’s about going home and falling in love. It’s bullshit and kitschy and I hate it.”

Margo laughs, “Uh-huh, yeah because you have such a lovely tradition of bringing your lovers home every year.”

Eliot should be hurt at that, he told her maybe ten minutes ago about his terribly tragic backstory. Instead, he laughs with her, “ Yeah okay, maybe I’m not the poster child for healthy happy family Christmas. “

“Yeah, let’s give Coldwater that one huh?”

“maybe.”

“I think you should release it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You saw what they did to my last one. I’m not turning this into some romantic coming home to my girlfriend and apple pie family song.”

“You literally just said it wasn’t a sad song.”

“It’s a fucking complicated song.”

“Yes.”

Eliot stares at her dumbfounded, “yes?”

“Yes, it’s a complicated song. I think you should play with it—“

“Uh-huh — “

“I don’t mean make it straight I mean maybe add a bass line and a piano track. Work out how to split the vocals.”

“It’s not a Physical Kids song.”

“ You’re a Physical Kid, you get to decide what the songs are.”

“Ha, sure I do.”

“I’m telling you you do.”

“No.”

“Okay, fine you don’t. I decide what the songs are, and I’m deciding that you should bring that song as it is to the cottage tomorrow morning and work on it.”

“ I said I’m not coming out.”

“Then don’t, fuck with the pronouns before you release it. But the whole band knows you’re gay right?” Eliot nods reluctantly. “Well then, it won’t hurt to play them it as it stands. Coldwater’s oblivious, he won’t get it.”

“It’s not about Qu—“

“Sure El.” Margo stands up and kisses him on the cheek, “If you’re not there at 7 am tomorrow I’ll slice your dick in half.”She says with a disconcerting smile about an inch from his face. Then she turns on her heel and heads to the kitchen. She rummages in her bag, she pulls out a bottle of aspirin. “For the hangover.” Then she picks up her file, tugs out an empty NDA. “Get Mike to sign this, when you want to come out I’ll be right there with you, but until then damage control.” 

Eliot is left sitting in the armchair, 10 am on a Wednesday morning, already drunk and feeling like someone has tipped out all the jigsaw pieces of his head and shuffled them with someone else’s.


	6. Eliot Waugh's Potentially Problematic Cock

When Eliot finishes playing he’s actually nervous — in the cottage, Eliot Waugh feeling anxious in the cottage — it’s unheard of. But here he is, pretending to be retuning his guitar and strategically avoiding looking at his bandmates. It’s not like this is the first time he’s played them a song he wrote, hell it’s not even the first time he’s played them a song about Quentin. Not that this is actually about Quentin, maybe inspired by certain real life events, but for the most part fictionalised. Maybe. Fuck Margo’s getting to him. He swallows his nerves and looks up, his face a perfect mask of controlled, uncaring, cool. “So?”

“That was amazing El, like really strong.” Todd chirps up, Eliot immediately disregards the compliment, Todd’s incapable of criticism constructive or otherwise.

He forces himself to look around the room, Penny’s leaning back in his chair eyebrows raised, “ You’re a sap Waugh,”He says with the hint of a smile.

Josh pipes up with, “That was awesome! Honestly I can’t wait to get to work on it.”

Eliot nods and glances at Quentin, who is studiously picking at his thumb nail. Eliot’s heart drops in his chest at Q’s disinterest, it’s not like this song was definitely 100% about him, or that he wanted in any way for Quentin to react at all really, but still… “ Q?” He asks tentatively.

Quentin’s head jerks up, he stutters “ oh yeah great song El, sorry I — um, zoned out I guess? Er, sorry not , er —“

Margo takes pity on him and steps in, “ Great well now we all approve you can all get to work.” She’s wearing that shark smile again. “So I’m thinking we go for Christmas number one.”

Penny lets out a low, long whistle, “that’s in like a month Margo…”

“Exactly, surprise hit.”

“But does anyone even like care about that now?” Eliot asks.

“I do, and the label does and you should if you care about keeping the money coming in to fund your ridiculous lifestyle — not everyone gets their manager bringing them painkillers and mimosa’s El.”Margo strokes his arm and Eliot isn’t sure whether to be offended or not.

“ I never asked you to turn up at my apartment,” _and aren’t we friends? Or on the way to friends?_

“Mmhmm,but in the interests of me keeping on turning up, get to work.” Margo claps her hands and looks expectantly at the room.

There’s a moment of bemused silence then a everyone starts moving. Josh moves to the piano. He starts riffing off what he remembers from the song. Penny joins in on the bass. Quentin’s still studying his cuticles, but Eliot is swept up in this rush of gratefulness. This is his job and these are his people. Here in the cottage he gets to turn up and play a ridiculously heartfelt Christmas song, for fucks sake, and these people just get it. They get it and they join in. It’s absurd in it’s wonderfulness.

Eliot grins and walks over to the piano, standing behind Josh. “I like that, but maybe if we make it a little —“

Josh does a ridiculous little funky riff, “more fun?”

Eliot laughs, “I was going to say maybe try an octave higher but go off,” He looks up at Quentin expecting to see his face crinkled up in laughter too, but he’s not. Instead he’s standing in the middle of the room, looking lost. With his arms wrapped around his body like that he looks so small. Eliot just wants to pull him into his chest, he doesn’t know what’s wrong but he knows that he desperately needs to fix it. “Q? You want a copy of the lyrics?” He says instead, he’s probably just feeling awkward about Eliot’s fucking love song — _not love song —_ Eliot reminds himself as Quentin nods, his brow not lifting from that deep frown.

________

The next time Eliot sees Quentin he looks about ten years older, and somehow ten years younger at the same time. He’s curled up on one of the plush spinning chairs in the cottage lobby, his knees drawn up to his chest with his chin propped on them. His arms stretch past his knees to hold a tattered paperback. It looks supremely uncomfortable.

“Hey Q, what ya’ reading?” Eliot says as he sits down in the next chair over , legs on the floor, butt on the chair.

Quentin looks up with these startled wide doe eyes as if he forgot where he was and the possibility of anyone speaking to him. “Huh?”

“The book, what is it, that’s so heavily caught your attention?” Eliot wheedles, restraining himself from making a grab for it.

“ Oh this?” Q looks at the book in his arms as if forgot that it was not just an extension of his body. “It’s one of the Fillory books, it’s not a big deal.”

“The kids books?”

“Uh, huh”

“You never read them as a kid?” Eliot had also never read them, along with Harry Potter, the Rainbow boys series — for obvious reasons — and basically anything that wasn’t the bible repackaged for kids. His mother had made a great deal out of his ability to reread the Narnia books and had almost slapped him when he said Aslan seemed ‘a bit useless’. But his own bibliophobia was not going to stop him from making fun of Quentin.

Quentin sighed and manoeuvred himself out of his strange position, he elected to sit cross legged with the book held in his lap. Was there a game of floor is lava that Eliot hadn’t been clued in on? “I’m just rereading it.”

“Why?”

“I just— it’s a comfort, when I’m stressed out I read them. It’s like meeting up with an old friend you know?” Eliot did not know, but he could get the sentiment and he knew that Q had had a much more idyllic childhood than he had, so he did his best to emphasise.

“You’re stressed out?”

“Aren’t you?”

Eliot ran through his mental schedule, was there something important he was forgetting about. There was the new album but he’d contributed enough for that for now, eventually Margo would let up and the song writers would be most of the work. “…no?”

“Oh.” Quentin looks annoyed, “Fogg’s put me on all of this promo work for the single.”

“The weird cowboy song?” Eliot asks barely suppressing a smirk.

Quentin glares at him, “Don’t laugh.”

“Me? Never!”Eliot says dramatically.

“I used to go to junior cowboy camp,” Quentin says with a bright red face, “So Fogg thought it would be real fun for me to get into that stupid fucking costume and be interviewed on a horse.”

“You can ride?”

“No, I hated junior cowboy camp, I have no fucking idea how to ride a horse and I’m pretty sure they all hate me.”

“They being—?”

“ The horses.” Quentin said darkly.

“…ah”Eliot patted Q’s hand. He deliberately did not give away that he knew anything about horses. Unfortunately Quentin had a brain and a functioning memory, damn.

“Can you ride? From you know —“ Quentin leaned in, “Indiana.”

Eliot laughed at the conspiratorial tone, but he appreciated the seriousness with which Q took his secrets. “Depends what sort of riding.” Eliot winked.

Quentin rolls his eyes, “Horse riding obviously.”

“How would me being able to ride help you with your shitty interview?”

“Body swap?”

“I don’t think my body could cope being contorted into the positions your put yours in.” Quentin’s eyes flick down Eliot’s body and for a moment Eliot imagines the positions they could put contort themselves into together. Then Quentin laughs and shakes his head so some of his hair shakes free of his increasingly messy bun, “It’s your legs, far too long.”

“Hmm, maybe.” Eliot spins in his chair for a moment, “So it’s just the horses on your mind?”

Quentin’s smile slips off his face pretty much instantaneously, in a much quieter voice he says, “I guess there’s some other stuff, like, it’s not fucking important or whatever,”

“Tell me?”

“Honestly, El, it’s just like — irrelevant, like personal shit and like I should be able to deal with all of this, it’s not like I’m getting a heavier load than you are, you wrote this whole Christmas thing and all I have to do is like sing it you know? I should not be stressed.” Eliot frowns as he notices a tiny bit of blood well up on Quentin’s cuticle where he’s been steadily picking and nibbling at it.

Eliot reaches out and gently takes his hand and pulls it out of danger, Quentin rolls his eyes, but holds his hand anyway. Eliot definitively does not think about how warm and rough Q’s palms are, about the way they fit so perfectly in his. He doesn’t think about the way Quentin’s other hand is pulling at his hair and his knee is bouncing anxiously. Eliot absolutely doesn’t even consider how it would feel to pull the other man into his arms and hold him there tightly until all that anxiety, all that tension, is forced to melt away. Instead he says, “I don’t think it helps to say you shouldn’t be stressed; like you are stressed. It’s like asking a hallucination if they’re a hallucination you know?”

“You got much experience there?” Quentin asks, it’s obvious deflection but Eliot still smiles at the moment Q gets away from whatever churning anxiety sits inside him.

“A story for another day. “ He says softly. “ So let’s break this down you’ve got Fogg and his stupid horses who all hate you,” Quentin nods as if that’s totally valid, and well Eliot guesses the emotion is valid, but he’s pretty sure that horses only hold grudges as far as the nearest carrot, “what’s the personal stuff?” He moves his thumb in little circles around the back of Quentin’s hand, hoping it’s at least a little soothing. 

They sit in silence for a moment, listening to Quentin’s unsteady breathing then finally he says, “It’s just Fogg is constantly booking me in for stuff, like I get that I’m lucky and all — Alice keeps pointing out how lucky I am to be working — but I kind of want a break? Like today I’min the studio with you, then tonight I’ve got some like casting or whatever?”

“Casting? I didn’t know you act?”

“I don’t! That’s the thing, I don’t horse-ride, I don’t act, I’m terrible at modelling, god I didn’t even sing before all this!” Quentin pulls his hand way to gesture at the room.

Eliot cocked his head, “You didn’t sing?” He asked slowly. “ What did you do? As cute as you are,” Quentin blushed adorably,“I doubt they plucked you off the street and said, “ Eliot put on an old Hollywood drawl, “hey here’s thousands of dollars go be a star.”

Quentin shook his head, “ you’re not allowed to make fun of me for this.”

“When have I ever made fun of you Quentin dearest?”

Quentin gives him a long suffering look, “I did magic, like up close street magic,” Eliot felt his face crack into a beam, “Fogg offered me representation and like, just put me up for everything and now I’m here and apparently nobody wants to see card tricks so I do this and everything fucking else he makes me do.”

“You don’t do any magic anymore?” Eliot asks with a frown.

“Not really, I still learn stuff when I’m anxious or whatever, but like Alice doesn’t like watching them and it wouldn’t be ‘on brand’ for me to be busking would it?” Quentin runs a hand through his hair, he tugs his bun out and reties it. Eliot mourns the loss of the little pieces of hair hanging down around Q’s face.

“ I mean you have friends other than Alice right?”

“Well yeah, but I think Julia’s had enough card tricks to last her for the next decade and you guys, like, I don’t know it’s kind of I don’t know, childish?” Quentin looks at the ground.

“I don’t think it’s childish, good slight of hand can be really hard.”

Quentin looks up, a suddenly bright look in his eye, “Thank-you! It’s like really hard! To do the really complicated stuff takes a ton of dexterity, not to mention the showmanship involved, like I’m not stupid I know it’s obviously not real magic?” He’s moving his hands around as he talks, looking excited for the first time in a while, _god this man_. “Like I think it makes it better? Because it’s a trick, someone has put all this work in to make it feel like the world is more exciting than it is? For a moment we get to live in a world with the impossible, where like you can actually disappear and appear somewhere better. So what if it’s fake those things still happen, like even if I do cheat so I always know what card you pull the trick isn’t me guessing the card, the trick is me making you think that it’s random you know? It’s just… like really cool.” Quentin trails off, he looks to the ground again. “Sorry, I … I just don’t get to talk about this a lot.” He tugs his sleeves down over his palms and once again Eliot wants to pull him into his arms.

“It’s okay, I like it when you talk about stuff like this.” Eliot says softly. Quentin looks up at him and for just a moment they hold eye contact. Eliot feels like he could live in this moment forever, eyes locked, some unknown but peaceful thought brewing behind Q’s eyes. Something pushing them to lean towards each other across the divide between their chairs.

“Waugh! Coldwater! Stop flirting and get back in here!” Penny shouts from the studio.

Quentin groans and stands up, but Eliot grabs hold of his hand. Quentin pauses and looks back quizzically. Suddenly Eliot feels incredibly stupid, why did he feel the need to keep Quentin close to him? _That’s kind of creepy El._ He swallows and says, “If you want to show anyone tricks, I’d love to see some magic.” He lets go of Quentin’s hand.

Quentin smiles at him, “I’d like that.”

______

The rest of the production goes pretty smoothly, Eliot even, _shock horror_ , has fun. With Bambi’s attitude being pretty much laissez-faire provided they actually do the work for the first time in a long time The Physical Kids find themselves enjoying the process, and actually making music rather than just playing whatever they’re given.Much to Margo’s smugness no-one in the band has any problem playing a song with male romantic pronouns. It almost comes as a surprise when Margo rings him , all apologetic and angry. Eliot learned a long time ago not to get his hopes up though so he deals with the let down pretty quickly.

When he puts down the phone Quentin is looking at him like he’s an alien. “Shit sorry, um… I wanted to surprise you.” Eliot says with what he hopes is a charming smile. When he left the house he was sure it was a good idea, surprise your increasingly stressed out bandmate at his horse-riding interview that he hates. Makes total sense, not creepy at all. Now he’s blundered through the stables having a loud, dramatic conversation with Bambi about how gay he is he’s regretting it maybe a little bit. Plus it’s fucking cold and he forgot quite how much horses shit. Eliot shakes his head minutely, he’s committed now, and hands over a gift bag to Quentin — who is just looking more and more confused.

Quentin takes the bag and opens it up, he pulls a tube of deep heat out and waves it at Eliot, “um… what?”

“For your ass.”

“Uh--? I’m sorry?” Quentin takes a step back.

“Because of the horse riding?” Eliot is never nervous, but god this is awkward. What the fuck was he thinking? Quentin Coldwater is his bandmate that’s it, so what if he does know what his dick tastes like and how his family Christmas’s work. That’s not — _fucking workplace boundaries Eliot._ “Sorry it’s silly, I thought it’d be funny but —“ Eliot snatches for the tube.

Quentin pulls it to his chest, “No I want it!”

Eliot laughs and holds his hands up, “Okay, you’re welcome then.”

Quentin nods and drops the tube into the back, a little smile sneaking onto his face. “Sorry, I — thanks El, I appreciate that you’re thinking of my ass.”

“I mean, I also did want to see whether all horses really hate you.”

“God they do, they hate me so fucking much. It was awful.”

“Oh yeah, you want to tell me over a drink?” Eliot says angling his head for the gate. He’d done his research, he knew all the best pubs round here. Eliot is nothing if not thorough in his planning for platonic-date-like-situations-with-straight-people.

Quentin nods and starts walking then stops, his face scrunching up. “Ah shit El, Alice is coming. She like _really_ loves horses.”

Eliot turns to face him again, one eyebrow raised, “Well that’s a Romeo and Juliet situation.”

“God, don’t. It’s fine it’s very rare that we have situations like this. I’m sure our relationship will survive me watching her bounce around on a horse.” Quentin laughs a little awkwardly, then flushes. Oh right tits. Eliot has many bad things to say about Alice Quinn, but he cannot fault her tits. “I’ll see you at the party tonight though?”

Eliot tries not to look upset as he takes a step backwards, “Yeah of course, whatever. Have fun with the horses.”

He’s about to turn around when Quentin says, “Hey, what was the big um… argument…? What was that about?”

“Oh, the label isn’t okay with releasing the song with it’s original pronouns.” Eliot shrugs. “But like it’s fine, there’s a reason we recorded it with two options,like I’m not going to come out if it costs me my job.” Eliot swallows,“Plus it’s not fair on you guys, like you’re straight and I wouldn’t want to—“

“Eliot…” Quentin cuts over him. He slowly bounces up on the balls of his feet and down again. “You know I’m not straight right?”

Eliot blinks at him, “But Alice?”

Quentin looks around, leans in, “But last Christmas?” He says, his tone incredulous.

“Well yeah, but that was you know, just me helping out.”

“Well you didn’t say no homo, so like full fucking homo El, or well, full bimo, bise, uh… Point being what the fuck?”

“You have a girlfriend what did you expect me to think?” Eliot says his tone going a little sharp to make up for how gooey his insides feel at Quentin’s stumbling over his words.

“That I had my dick in your mouth so like maybe I was attracted to you?” Quentin takes a step back, runs a hand through his hair, then freezes. He turns back to look at Eliot, “is this why you wouldn’t let me,” He does air quotes, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “‘ return the favour’?”.

Eliot blanches, how is he suddenly under attack. What the actual fuck? “ Why does that matter?”

“Well,” Quentin’s inexplicable anger dissipates and he shuffles around a little, “I just, I wondered if you know there was something wrong with me, like if I had a weird mouth or something.”

“Q, you have a beautiful mouth.” Eliot aims for gentle mocking, it does not land. Far far to sincere for his liking.

“Shut up,” Quentin glares at him, “ Plus like no offence but I couldn’t see you as the type of person who would turn a blowjob down unless the guy had like sharpened teeth or whatever.”

Eliot chokes, “Excuse me?”

Quentin ignores him and continues talking, he’s got that wide-eyed look on his face he gets when he doesn’t know where his train of thought is going, but he’s kind of afraid to see, “I just spent the last year trying to work out if there was something wrong with your dick or with me and like neither of those are particularly comforting to think about—“

“There is nothing wrong with my dick!”

“Well yeah, I know that now. You’re just biphobic, which is like, loads better.”

“Would you rather I had a deformed dick?”

“Rather than being biphobic? Maybe! Or no, fuck I don’t care about your fucking dick!”Quentin is bright red now, and they’re attracting stares.

“Okay, glad to know.” Eliot says coldly, still not entirely sure why they’re yelling at each other, but the sight of Quentin Coldwater, red faced and yelling about his dick is doing things to him. He’s just not sure whether to be hurt, offended or turned on. Lucky for him, Eliot’s cock tends to always pick turned on in situations like this. So best to de-escalate the situation, because no matter what Q is saying this is definitely more of a general ‘how dare you assume _I’m_ straight’ situation than a ‘how dare _you_ assume I’m straight’ one. “I’ll see you at the party. Have fun with Alice.” Eliot turns on his heel and stalks out of the stables.


	7. Dragons Breath and Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas party! ... yay...

Eliot spends most of the party glaring at the obnoxious holiday decor, _really who decided that Christmas meant the brightest most garish red and green everywhere?_ Not to mention the frankly disgusting use of glitter. Eliot loves glitter, he does not love every single piece of his clothing being covered in the stuff, because somebody wanted a sparkly reindeer.

Thankfully where the party fails in it’s decor choices it more than makes up for in it’s open bar. Eliot loses himself in outrageous cocktail after outrageous cocktail, at one point he asks for, “all of your most expensive liquors muddled together,” just to see if they’d make it. They don’t. He gets a sharp look and a cold glass of water instead, which he sips gracelessly, debating whether or not to make a scene.

His phone keeps buzzing in his pocket; Mike. Sweet texan Mike, who seems convinced that he’ll make a homemaker out of Eliot yet. Yes it has been nice for Eliot to come home and make cocktails and cook for his hot boyfriend, who has no idea how his life actually works and who’s idea of sexually adventurous is flavoured lube. But Eliot can’t stop thinking about fucking Quentin Coldwater. He was meant to grab dinner with Mike before the big party, as way of apology for him not being invited — perks of your label mandating you stay in the closet; you have a valid reason to avoid your boyfriend when you’re fantasising about your bandmate — but Eliot hadn’t shown up. _The classic_ he thought bitterly as he muted Mike’s number for the night, _time to fuck everything up El._ Eliot stood up and stumbled over to find someone who would serve him a drink.

He finds himself in the middle of a conversation with Henry Fogg of all people, with hardly a clue on how he got there. “That’s what I keep saying to Q, music is hard, it takes discipline.” He’s saying, Eliot looks around for the other part of this conversation — no luck, it appears to be him. Someone walks past with a tray of drinks, thank god. Just as Eliot is about to nab one Henry grabs the whole tray, raising an eyebrow to silence the protesting waitress. Henry hands him a drink, two drinks, and Eliot smiles at the girl, she goes away. “ A little pain doesn’t hurt either.” Henry says with what he must think is a knowing smile.

Eliot knocks back the first of his glasses of champagne — no definitely Prosecco. “ I think I’m rather have less pain and be a shitty musician,” He says bluntly. Fogg laughs, a loud, slightly incredulous sound; from the throat not the chest. Eliot rolls his eyes, “I best go and circulate” He says, elongating his practised drawl so it’s practically comedic. If his family could see him now with his father’s ability to obliterate emotion with alcohol and his mothers ability to smile while doing it. Lucky fucking him.

He wanders around aimlessly for a moment, enjoying the strobe lighting effect of too much drink. Here he is flirting with some reporter with a fantastic rack, in an aesthetic sort of way. Here he is swinging an arm around Todd , making some awful joke at his expense and staggering away. Kissing the top of Margo’s head and wrapping his arms around her petit body while she laughs— a proper laugh, high pitched and a little out of control — and excuses his terrible behaviour. Here he is somehow on a balcony, an unlit cigarette in his hand. Here he is with that same cigarette , he thinks, half smoked, and Quentin standing in front of him.

Quentin’s mouth is slightly open, in that way he has of looking a little bit gormless when he hasn’t got anything to say. Eliot struggles with his lighter, allowing the silence to grow as he fumbles and fails to light his cigarette. Eventually it dawns on him, “Sorry were you expecting me to say something? I’ve ha,” He drops the cigarette, smoothes down his outfit, then says in what he would imagine is a Gatsby-esque tone — not that he never actually read the book, “ I’ve had a little too much to drink darling, so I’m a little out of sorts.” Eliot looks at his hands, no cigarette, damn. He pulls another out of his pack — almost out, when did that happen? He struggles with the lighter again.

Quentin sighs and gently tugs the lighter out of his hands, Eliot gratefully puts the cigarette between his lips and leans down so Quentin can light it. A burst of flame. The delicious burn of thick smoke tearing down his throat, the slow exhale of hot smoke mingling with cold air. Cigarettes and dragons-breath. He holds the cigarette out for Quentin, who looks around, smiles and takes a drag. “Don’t tell anyone.” He says as he hands it back.

Eliot can’t help but luxuriate in the unexpected bubble of confidentiality surrounding them. Him and Quentin wrapped up in a little pocket of secrecy, as long as the air around them smells of cigarette smoke he has this of Quentin. This tiny piece that no-one else is allowed to have. He supposes later that’s why he says what he says. Some small piece of his mind quietly reminding him that that’s a rude thing to say, mean even, but he can’t bring himself to listen before he’s said it. Much better to beat himself up later about how he should have known better. “Does Alice know you like sucking cock then?” He asks before a long exhale.

Quentin stares at him. His face, which had been in a little smile — perhaps a bit drawn, a bit concerned at the state of Eliot this early in the night — goes blank.“That’s none of your business.” He says flatly. He puts the lighter down on a table nearby. “ That’s yours,” Then turns to go.

“Fuck, no Q, hold on I didn’t mean it like that,” Eliot calls after him, that familiar shame returning.

Quentin turns around, he’s rigid, practically shaking in an attempt to hide his emotions. “ No? You meant to what? belittle my sexuality in a friendly way? Yes Eliot my girlfriend knows I’m bisexual, why the fuck is that important to you? Or like is it that fucking binary for you ? Either I love cock or I’m straight. I could never actually love my girlfriend and also find you attractive? Fuck you.”Eliot wants to hide, it’s rare to see Quentin actually angry, especially like this, his words a low hiss, no-one but Eliot would be able to hear him, but it’s a totally different sort of confidential bubble. Still good though, still something.

Eliot does not hide, he does his well practised move for when someones angry at him. He goes camp, pulls himself up to his considerable height and raises an eyebrow. This is a performance, it’s a performance that got him beat up back home, and has often lead to some very hot sex in New York, but it’s a mask non the less. No matter the reaction to this faux Eliot it can’t hurt the real him, cowering somewhere underneath all these layers. “ I just thought she might be interested in knowing that I’d sucked you off while you were dating is all.” He says, attempting to sound bored, blasé, as if this whole matter was vulgar and below him.

Quentin’s eyes widen, he stutters. “ I told you we were on a break El.”

“Were you though? Or was it one of those one sided breaks, where you were definitely going to break up with her, and then when you saw her again and got your cock in her so you thought better of it?”

“Fuck you.” Quentin takes a step away, his voice just a little bit too loud. Then he leans in again, runs a hand through his hair, “ Don’t tell her El, please. Fuck, I didn’t— it was Christmas and she didn’t want to meet my dad, I was pissed at her.”

Eliot smiles, a small triumph in a game no-one but him wanted to play. “ I won’t tell her Q” He wants to soften, wants to comfort Q say it’s okay that Alice was a dick why the fuck wouldn’t she want to be part of the adorable Coldwater family, that he deserves better. That he can find someone more suited to him, someone who could actually make a life with him; but then what? He’d just hate that person, because Eliot Waugh could never offer himself up. No he’s not the sort of person you could make a life with. Instead he takes a drag of his cigarette and laughs, “ Who knew Quentin Coldwater was just as much of a degenerate as the rest of us? We’ll have to start inviting you to the orgies.”

Quentin glares at him, and takes a cigarette from Eliot’s pack, “ You know I’m really not a fan with this whole ‘ Quentin Coldwater is a virgin schtick’ I’m only like a year younger than you, I”m not a baby.”

“Oh darling, who said I wasn’t into the ‘virgin schtick’” Eliot leaned back in his chair, smirking and allowing his eyes to flick down Quentin’s body. Quentin glares at him, his face reddening in a way that should make Eliot back down, anyone with an ounce of self awareness would back down now, and yet, “For the record I am — into it.” Quentin was shaking now, his hands clenching into fists. Eliot watched with a sort of detached interest. The consequences of this didn’t matter, not behind the veil of alcohol and performance that he wore so well. He finished his cigarette and stood up, wondering idly if Josh had any K; another layer of dissociation would really hit the spot right now. Quentin’s mouth opened as Eliot brushed past him. That little voice piped up again, _leave it, before you really fuck everything up._ As per usual Eliot ignored it, pushing past the barrier, seeing whether the warning sign was real or a trick. “Well have fun with your beard, Cocksucker.” He drawled with the balcony door open, congratulating himself on what in retrospect was a shitty pun.

Quentin’s fist hit him out of nowhere, blood spurting from his nose, crashing on to the floor — no coordination, maybe too many drinks, Eliot didn’t seem to remember how to fall. He was laughing, crying maybe? No laughing. Laughing at the sheer absurdity of Quentin Coldwater punching him. At the joy of properly feeling something that wasn’t sweet and comfortable and texan fucking boyfriend quaint. Eliot looked up at Quentin, standing over him, panting with his cheeks flushed. Fuck he’s hot. Is this a kink to explore? Or just a worrying thought? Hmm.

As Eliot kept lying there, laughing and making zero attempt to get up Quentin seemed to calm down, his glare turning into a frown, his mouth open a little and eyes widening in concern. “El? Are you okay?”

Then the sound of heels sharply clicking over and, “What the fuck? One night! What the actual pussy-licking cock sucking fuck Coldwater?” Quentin spluttered a bit, then went bright red and swallowed. He fled.

Eliot waved a hand at him in a way that he thought was demure, “see you soon baby.” 

Margo yanked him to his feet, “ I’m pissed at you too El, I just don’t think you’ll remember me yelling at you. So I’m going to get you in bed, wait until you’re miserable and hungover and rip you an entire new digestive tract.” She hissed in his ear, all while smiling at the rest of the room, “Just a bit too much to drink. Creatives, so passionate!”

When he got back to his apartment Mike was waiting for him, “Margo called me. Are you alright?” Eliot couldn’t stand to look at his stupid concerned face. On principal he pulled himself out of the uber and walked past Mike into the building. Mike followed, streaming words that Eliot didn’t care to understand. Finally, once they were safely in Eliot’s flat Mike pushed him down onto the sofa and took a proper look at his bruised face. “What happened El?”

God his voice was so soft, gentle fingertips prodding at his face to assess damage. One big hand wrapped around his jaw so he wouldn’t move. For a moment Eliot felt a spark of trepidation. But then what’s another stupid decision after tonight? If Eliot is going to fuck things up he’s going to go all the way. It’s not like he deserves this kindness anyway. He shook his face free from Mike’s grasp. “Get out.”

“What? El? Are you okay?” Mike’s eyebrows scrunched up, and he took a little step back, but he made no move to leave Eliot alone.

“Get the fuck out!.’ Eliot allowed his voice to raise, his drunkenness to come through in slurred speech and unmodulated pitch. “I don’t want to date you Mike.”

“What’s brought this on?”

“What’s brought this on?” Eliot mocked, “I wanted a quick fuck, because I was jealous of mother fucking Alice Quinn then you never left. Like christ are you that desperate for attention that you’re totally blind to whether people like you? Sure you’re hot, but I don’t want to fucking date you Mike. I’m not going to marry you and move to Texas and vote fucking republican.” Mike was staring at him, dumb founded, not angry. Why the fuck wasn’t he angry? “And your dick’s weird.” Eliot shot out, cringing at it as he said it.

Mike let out a sharp burst of incredulous laughter, hands raised in surrender. “Sure, okay. Whatever. Fuck me for liking you I guess.” He disappeared into the bedroom, emerged holding his bag and left.

As the door slammed Eliot allowed himself to flop back onto the sofa. Alone, drunk with dried blood crusting his nose. Just like old times.


End file.
